ASHE IN AMERICA — OPINION
Partisan outrage broke out earlier this month when former Democrat Senator Sonya Jaquez-Lewis was sentenced to probation for committing four felonies in an attempt to mislead an ethics panel. Her charges included one count of attempting to influence a public servant (C.R.S. 18-8-306), and three forgery counts.
That statute should sound familiar. C.R.S. 18-8-306 was the charging statute for three of former Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters’ felonies — and she was sentenced to three and a half years in state custody for each of the counts.
Jaquez-Lewis attempted to influence the officials handling her ethics committee. Peters influenced three officials to bring an observer into her office. The difference in the cases comes down to prosecutorial discretion. That’s what caused the outrage.
Even Governor Polis got in on the drama.
“But it is not lost on me that [Jaquez-Lewis] was convicted of the exact same felony charge as Tina Peters — attempting to influence a public official,” the Governor posted on his personal account on X. “— and yet Tina Peters, as a non-violent first-time offender got a nine-year sentence.” He then talked about clemency calculus.
Predictably, the uniparty lost their minds at Polis’ suggestion that Peters might get out of prison. She represents the death rattle of a carefully created narrative about “election denialism” being dangerous to “democracy.”
They need that to be true (it isn’t), because they used that fake narrative to weaponize the government and undermine democracy themselves. If it’s not true, they violated their oaths of office and abused their power.
Clemency makes that inevitability go away for them. It’s an act of mercy for agreed upon guilt. It fortifies the state’s assertion that Tina Peters got due process, and that she was convicted by a jury of her peers after a fair trial. That’s not true.
The handling of Tina Peters’ case was so egregious that the three-judge panel that heard her appeal in February seemed poised to grant Peters at least some relief:
“The official misconduct charge was charged as with the intent to receive a benefit for herself,” Judge Tow said. “Why is it not relevant to the jury for her to say, ‘I didn’t intend to receive a benefit for myself. I intended to do what I thought was my job and protect the election process.’ Why was that evidence not relevant at least to that charge?”
Peters was prohibited by the trial court from defending against the state’s characterization of her intent before the jury.
The judge continued after an exchange with the solicitor arguing for the prosecution, “Why was that evidence not appropriately submitted to a jury?”
“When it comes to a defendant’s Constitutional Right to present a complete defense, does a trial court have the ability to curtail that in the interest of not letting the sideshow overcome the circus? Don’t they have a Constitutional Right to present a complete defense? …the Court can prevent cumulative or irrelevant evidence, but I cannot curtail the presentation of relevant evidence.”
This should be fatal to the prosecution.
The state and judge biased the jury — and not just on the misdemeanor. The only intent argument that was presented to the jury about Tina Peters — for any count — was the state’s characterization of her intent on the misdemeanor. That violation on one count arguably biases the jury on all counts. That’s not justice.
Earlier this month, I debated this point with District Attorney George Braucher (R-JD23) on Ryan Schuiling Live (630 KHOW) where I quoted Judge Tow’s statements above and posited, “Why she did what she did is relevant; and you could say it doesn’t matter, but then you have to throw out the misdemeanor for official misconduct because there’s an intent requirement. You cannot allow the state to…characterize her intent to the jury and refuse to allow her to present a defense for that.”
Brauchler’s response was chilling: “…we’re not talking about the intent like [Tina] had the intent to break the law [in] her conduct. She acted like a guilty person in the way that she did this. She didn’t act like an innocent person doing innocent things for a greater good.”
Is that the legal standard for whether the accused has access to due process and a trial by jury?
She acted guilty and, essentially, we knew she was guilty — so it’s fine that we violated her rights. She was guilty!
That’s grounds for reversal on appeal, which would expose due process violations and reinforce the rule of law; clemency keeps the conviction and the official narrative intact and allows the prosecutors to avoid inquiry on their violations of Tina Peters’ rights.
The Bill of Rights is always inconvenient for prosecutors. That’s its point. It’s non-negotiable in its demands that justice not be weaponized for politics…even if the government is certain the accused is guilty.
A 70-year-old woman, with no record, was charged with a nonviolent offense; the prosecutors decided her intent and characterized it to the jury; they prohibited her from disputing that characterization; and she was convicted.
Then they locked her up for almost nine years.
It’s hard to argue this is about the ethics of public officials and making examples when another official — Sonya Jaquez Lewis, who has the correct politics and positions on elections, gets probation under the same statute.
The facts, the evidence, and the law — not the stories told to the public — are what is supposed to matter in a court of law. In Tina Peters’ case — a political show trial bolstered by due process violations and false narratives about election crimes — only the story mattered.
Clemency locks that false story in — and it moots any further attempts to correct it. For due process, elections, and Tina Peters, that’s the worst possible outcome.
For those white knuckling the story, it’s the best.
That’s likely why Jared Polis is now talking about clemency in this case.
Ashe Epp is a local writer, host, and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/asheinamerica.
