April 2 (UPI) — A Colorado appeals court on Thursday threw out the sentence of Tina Peters, a former elections clerk, who was convicted in an election data case.
Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison in August 2024 on seven of the 10 counts for which she was charged.
She allowed an unauthorized person to make copies of voting machine hard drives that included classified information. The data from those drives was then leaked online by conspiracy theorists who falsely said it proved President Donald Trump correct in his assertion that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
Trump later pardoned Peters, but Colorado officials said he has no power to do so because she was convicted by the state. He has since pressured Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to pardon her.
The judges of the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that District Judge Matthew Barrett wrongfully used Peters’ beliefs and promotion of election fraud conspiracy theories in his sentencing.
“We reverse her sentence because it was based in part on improper consideration of her exercise of her right to free speech,” the court wrote, sending her case back to the trial judge. Now Barrett must re-sentence Peters without using her beliefs to make the decision, the appeals judges said.
At the sentencing, Barrett said Peters had no remorse and called her a “charlatan” who abused her position to “peddle snake oil.”
“I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could,” The Hill reported Barrett said. “You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen.”
In its decision, the appeals court said her beliefs shouldn’t color the sentencing.
“Her offense was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud; it was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud. Indeed, under these circumstances, just as her purported beliefs underlying her motive for her actions were not relevant to her defense, the trial court should not have considered those beliefs relevant when imposing sentence.”
The appeals court did not overturn Peters’ conviction and formally said Trump doesn’t have the power to pardon a person for state law offenses.
“The crux of Peters’ argument is that the phrase ‘Offences against the United States’ includes an offense against any of the states in the union,” the court wrote. “We join what appears to us to be every other appellate court that has addressed the issue and reject such an expansive reading of the phrase.”
Peters served as a clerk in Mesa County, Colo., whose county seat is Grand Junction, in western Colorado.
She was convicted on three counts of attempting to influence a public servant and one count each of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree misconduct, violation of duty and failure to comply with the requirements of the secretary of state.