Jared Polis: The Appeals Court Found Tina Peter’s Beliefs Should Not Justify a ‘Harsher’ Sentence

RUSH EXCERPT:

POLIS: “Uh, well, first of all, I commuted the sentences of nine people today. I pardoned 35. Tina Peters was not among those. The attorney general and the prosecuting attorney for Mesa county were part of the prosecution. And there’s something about prosecutorial pride. Prosecutors are seldom, if ever, satisfied by the commutations I make. And sometimes they’re quite mad. Um, what what a what a commutation is is effectively saying we’re going to look at the sentence as a whole. Was it different than other people that committed the same crime there was, in fact, another public official in Colorado convicted of four felonies. One was the exact same felony as Tina Peters, and she got zero time in prison. She got probation, only had Tina Peters gotten a year or two years or even three. I don’t think anybody would have batted an eye. But the reason we’re here is because I fundamentally agree with the appeals court that the fact that she engages in speech and has beliefs that are far from the mainstream incorrect, uh, should not, in fact be a basis for harsher sentencing and four and”