Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) did something very unusual last week. When Polis granted Tina Peters’s clemency petition, allowing her to leave prison years ahead of her scheduled release date, there was no political or personal benefit to the governor. As a Democratic governor in what has become a solidly blue state, Polis’s main constituency consists of members of his own party. Yet he enraged those very same people when he paved the way for the early release of Peters, a figure villainized on the Left for reasons that go far beyond her role in a data breach following the 2020 election.Polis displayed true courage, and if we as Americans want to see more courageous, principled actions by politicians, we should be unequivocal in our praise.
COLORADO ADULT DIES FROM HANTAVIRUS, BUT CASE NOT LINKED TO CRUISE SHIP
Peters was convicted for actions she took as the Mesa County Clerk in Colorado in 2021, specifically allowing an unauthorized person access to her office’s voting equipment based on her concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election. As a result of this data breach, a judge sentenced Peters, a nonviolent, first-time offender who is now 70, to nine years in prison.
Even Colorado’s Court of Appeals found this sentence troubling, vacating it based on the sentencing judge’s improper consideration of Peters’ political viewpoints and beliefs about the 2020 election. Last week, Polis commuted Peters’ sentence to four-and-a-half years, citing the disproportionate length of the punishment, the Court of Appeals’ ruling regarding the impropriety of her sentence, and Peters’s acknowledgment in her clemency application that she had made mistakes. Peters will now be free on June 1.
