The Colorado Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ conviction on felony charges related to a breach of her office’s elections equipment, but it ruled that a trial court had erred in imposing her nine-year prison sentence.

Peters’ sentence, handed down in October 2024, was “based in part on improper consideration of her exercise of her right to free speech,” a panel of three appellate judges wrote in their unanimous 78-page opinion, ordering the lower court to resentence her.

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The ruling follows a January hearing during which Judges Craig Welling, Ted Tow III and Lino Lipinsky de Orlov of the Court of Appeals repeatedly questioned the severity of Peters’ sentence.

The appeal of her criminal case is one part of a scattershot campaign of legal maneuvering and political coercion seeking the release of the prominent election denier, who was convicted by a Mesa County jury in a 2024 trial, throughout which the county’s former top elections official continued to spread conspiracy theories about voting machines, including in a rambling 40-minute statement just before her sentencing.

Prior to issuing her sentence, District Court Judge Matthew Barrett called Peters a “charlatan” who peddled “snake oil,” and referred to her efforts to “undermine the integrity of our elections and public’s trust in our institutions.”

“The trial court’s comments about Peters’s belief in the existence of 2020 election fraud went beyond relevant considerations for her sentencing,” the Court of Appeals opinion says. “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.”

A campaign of coercion

Claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent or compromised have been debunked by elections officials, experts, media investigations, law enforcement, the courts and President Donald Trump’s own campaign and administration officials.

Since Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice has made several attempts to intervene in the Peters case, including through a brief in support of a habeas corpus petition 

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she had filed in federal court and a request by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons for her transfer to federal custody. At the request of Peters’ attorneys, Trump in December issued a pardon to her, which had no legal effectsince she was convicted on state charges.

The Court of Appeals ruling dismisses arguments made by Peters’ attorneys that the U.S. Constitution’s reference to the president’s authority to grant “pardons for offenses against the United States” applies to offenses in any state in the union.

“We join what appears to us to be every other appellate court that has addressed the issue and reject such an expansive reading,” the court wrote. “Peters cites no case — and our research has found none — that has held otherwise.”

The ruling also dismisses Peters’ claim that as an official overseeing federal elections, she was immune from prosecution under the Constitution’s supremacy clause, along with several other evidentiary and procedural objections to her prosecution. It leaves in place her convictions on four felony and three misdemeanor counts, all of which stemmed from her role in a 2021 breach of secure elections equipment in an unsuccessful attempt to uncover evidence of fraud.

“The convictions are affirmed, the sentence is reversed, and the case is remanded with directions,” the opinion concludes.

Pressure for clemency

In a statement, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said she was “appreciative of (the court’s) rejection of Trump’s unlawful attempt to pardon” Peters.

“Peters will continue to face accountability for coordinating a breach of her own election equipment,” Griswold said. “Her actions have been repeatedly used to spread conspiracy theories, amplify falsehoods, and fuel dangerous election lies. Peters should not receive any special treatment as the District Court considers re-sentencing.”

As its efforts to free Peters have intensified, the Trump administration has launched an unprecedented pressure campaign targeting Colorado, including the veto of a unanimously passed bill to fund an Arkansas Valley water project, the denial of two disaster declaration requests, and the proposed dismantling of Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research. The moves followed Trump’s threat to take “harsh measures” against Colorado if Peters wasn’t released, and an unnamed senior official appeared to acknowledge their retaliatory motive in comments to The New York Times.

Governor Jared Polis has described Peters’ nine-year sentence as “harsh,” and suggested in interviewsthat he may be willing to grant her application for clemency. The Denver Post reported last month that the governor’s staff told Democratic state lawmakers he would wait to decide whether to commute her sentence until after the Court of Appeals had ruled on her case.