Peters’ legal battle has now narrowed to what a sentencing judge may consider, even as the appellate court left her conviction intact. In a Thursday ruling, Colorado’s appeals court said Peters should be resentenced because the original judge wrongly factored in speech that the court said was protected under free speech principles. The court sent the case back for a new sentence after rejecting many other arguments Peters raised on appeal.
The underlying case stems from Peters’ time as Mesa County clerk in far western Colorado and a 2021 software update to the county’s election computer system. Prosecutors said Peters let an outside computer expert enter the process to copy the system, using her access as clerk and later posting confidential voting system passwords, along with a photo and video, on social media and a conservative website.
Jurors convicted Peters of state crimes tied to the scheme. The appeals court’s decision upheld the conviction after a 74-page ruling that rejected a range of issues Peters presented, including arguments that focused on the limits of a president’s pardon power. Despite that affirmation of guilt, the appellate panel said the sentencing phase required correction because of what Judge Matthew Barrett considered in 2024.
At sentencing, Peters’ continued promotion of election fraud conspiracies became part of the record the appellate court said should not have been used to determine punishment. The appeals court found that Barrett “violated her rights to free speech” by punishing Peters at least in part for statements the court deemed protected. Writing for the court, Judge Ted Tow said the “trial court obviously erred” by imposing sentence based on Peters’ protected speech.
In interviews and filings, Peters and her supporters have tied her case to the election conspiracy movement. The Associated Press reported that calls for Peters’ release became a cause célèbre in that movement, and President Donald Trump sought to pardon her unsuccessfully and pressured Colorado to free her. The case has also drawn attention from Colorado’s Democratic political leadership as Gov. Jared Polis considered clemency.
Peters’ lawyer, John Case, said the appeals court’s ruling affirmed the importance of free speech. In the AP report, Case said Peters “was punished for words that she used to criticize our insecure and illegal voting system,” adding that the decision “affirms that people are free to speak what they believe in Colorado as well as the rest of the United States of America.”
Polis praised the appeals court’s decision for rejecting Trump’s pardon while also upholding Peters’ free speech rights. In a statement, Polis said Colorado faced “a true test of our resolve as a state” to have “a fair judicial system,” not only for people Coloradans agree with but also for those they “vehemently disagree with.”
The appeals court decision also addressed broader questions raised by Peters’ attempt to seek release and limit the reach of the president’s pardon power. The AP reported that the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Prisons also became involved in efforts related to where Peters could be held. After those efforts failed, Trump announced a pardon for Peters in December, but the appeals court said it could find no prior example of a president pardoning someone for a state crime and ruled that the pardon had “no impact” on the state’s case.
Dan Rubinstein, the 21st Judicial District attorney who prosecuted Peters, said after the ruling that the judge potentially could impose a similar sentence to comply with the appeals court’s guidance. The court ordered that Peters be resentenced by a lower court, but the AP reported that the resentencing cannot happen for at least 42 days because the parties are expected to have time to appeal.
If Peters’ sentence changes after the resentencing, it will come against the backdrop of what the trial court said at sentencing. The AP report said Barrett called Peters a “charlatan” and said she had used her position to “peddle snake oil,” while prosecutors argued that her actions threatened election security and her duty as county clerk.
Peters’ lawyers did not dispute that she used a security badge to allow an associate connected to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to make a copy of the Dominion Voting Systems server during the annual software update in 2021, according to the AP report. However, Peters’ lawyers argued that she tried to preserve election data and assess whether an outside actor accessed the system while ballots were being counted, and they said she did not want the information made public.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, also a Democrat and a gubernatorial candidate, responded to the appeals court ruling by saying the original sentence was “fair and appropriate.” In a statement, Weiser said that “Whatever happens with her sentence,” Peters “will always be a convicted felon who violated her duty as Mesa County clerk, put other lives at risk, and threatened our democracy,” adding that “Nothing will remove that stain.” The appellate ruling means that even as her convictions remain, the question of how speech can be considered at sentencing will be central in the next phase of her case.