No bond for former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters as backers go to federal court
"You're saying put her on bond, and I don't know that there's anything that authorizes that," said US Chief Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak.
Peters is in jail in Larimer County as she serves nine years on a variety of convictions for her role in orchestrating a breach of unauthorized areas of Mesa County's elections office. She was convicted last August of three counts of attempted to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, violation of duty, and failing to comply with the Colorado Secretary of State.
Attorneys for Peters, who was not brought in for the hearing, are trying to involve federal courts in the review of her state-level convictions.
"If there's ever a case in which somebody should be released from jail, it's this one," said attorney Peter Ticktin.
Ticktin, a Florida-based attorney and longtime friend of President Donald Trump, said he was willing to drop several claims the magistrate judge said were not yet handled by the State Court of Appeals and should be. The petitioners are still hoping to claim in federal court that Peters' sentencing in a state court was a violation of her 1st Amendment rights because they claim the judge at her trial factored in the potential that not putting Peters in jail would allow her to speak publicly about the election security.
But Varholak said the appeals to Colorado's State Court of Appeals is the place to make that case, and until those appeals are exhausted, he did not want to weigh in.
"If Habeas is available, you have to present it to the Colorado Court of Appeals," he said, referring to the petitioner's efforts to have the court exercise habeas corpus, which means the federal court would have to demonstrate a legal basis for detaining her. That would hold the possibility of allowing her out of jail on bond during the appeals process.
Varholek said he could find no example in the history of the United States in which that has been done before appeals were exhausted at the state level.
He gave Peters' attorneys three weeks to file a brief on the issue.
Peters did not attend the hearing. She remains in the custody of the Larimer County Sheriff.
Outside the court, Ticktin railed against Peters' conviction and sentence.
"Why would she possibly be remorseful for doing exactly what her duty was to do? She never did anything wrong. Why are they so afraid of her having free speech? It's because she's not speaking lies, it's because she's speaking the truth."
While Peters appeals her conviction and sentence, the Department of Justice says it is reviewing the case. "This review will include an evaluation of the State of Colorado's prosecution of Ms. Peters and, in particular, whether the case was "oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives," said a release from earlier this year. The Colorado Attorney General's Office has characterized the move as unprecedented.
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