Before Peters is resentenced, Barrett must decide whether he keeps the case

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice

A Mesa County judge has ordered the state’s attorneys to respond to a motion seeking his removal from the Tina Peters case, setting up a legal fight that will determine who presides over her resentencing—and who decides whether she remains in prison while that process unfolds.

In an April 22 order, District Court Judge Matthew Barrett directed the state to file a response “as soon as practicable,” with a deadline of April 27.

The order does not resolve the issue. It moves it forward.

Now the court must decide whether Barrett can remain on the case—and nothing else in district court moves until that question is answered.

Recusal comes first, and pauses everything else

The disqualification motion was filed by Peters’ attorneys on April 22, arguing that Barrett showed “actual unfair prejudice” during her October 2024 sentencing and that his impartiality “might reasonably be questioned.”

Within hours, the defense also filed a renewed motion asking the court to release Peters on bond while she awaits resentencing.

That second filing triggered an immediate response from the court.

“I cannot rule on this motion until Defendant’s motion for my recusal is resolved,” Barrett wrote.

Once the recusal issue is decided, he added, “either myself or another district court judge will promptly rule” on the bond motion.

Before the court decides whether Peters is released, it will decide who gets to make that decision.

What the judge said from the bench

Peters has been in custody 568 days. The motion to remove Barrett centers on statements he made from the bench during sentencing.

“You are no hero. You abused your position and you’re a charlatan,” Barrett said at the time, accusing Peters of promoting claims he described as “junk” and “snake oil.”

He also told her the “damage” caused by her words was “just as bad, if not worse” than physical violence and described prison as appropriate for those who pose a danger “whether it be by the pen or the sword or the word of the mouth.”

The defense argues those remarks were not just harsh—but disqualifying.

That argument gained new relevance after the Colorado Court of Appeals found the sentence was based, at least in part, on Peters’ own statements.

Appeals court ruling now shapes the next fight

The Court of Appeals vacated Peters’ sentence earlier this month, concluding the trial court “obviously erred by imposing sentence at least partially based on Peters’s protected speech.”

Peters filed a petition for rehearing on April 16, asking the court to reconsider portions of its ruling that went against her on the underlying convictions. On April 23, the appellate court denied that petition and stayed issuance of the mandate until May 22, 2026.

That leaves the April 2 ruling intact. The sentence remains vacated, and the case now returns to district court for resentencing—once the recusal question is settled.

Peters retains the option to petition the Colorado Supreme Court for review before May 22.

The appeals court told her to file this motion in trial court

The recusal motion now before Barrett follows a path the appellate court outlined twice.

In a Feb. 18 order denying Peters’ petition for review of her bond denial, the Court of Appeals also rejected her request to assign a new district court judge. The panel called the request “conclusory” and said there was “no indication in the Petition (or anywhere else in the record) that this relief has been pursued in the district court in the first instance.”

The denial came without prejudice to her right to seek the same relief in district court.

In its April 2 opinion vacating the sentence, the court declined again to assign a new judge, writing that any such request “must first be pursued in the trial court.”

She has now done that.

Affidavits bring the argument inside the courtroom

The motion is supported by sworn affidavits from people who were present at sentencing, including Peters’ former trial attorney and a longtime Mesa County pastor and law enforcement chaplain.

Attorney Michael Edminister, who represented Peters at trial, wrote that the sentence stood out immediately.

“The sentence shocked me because it was so severe compared to what other defendants receive in Mesa County and other courts where I represent criminal defendants.”

Rev. Robert Babcox, a longtime Mesa County pastor who serves as Chief Chaplain for the Colorado State Patrol in Grand Junction, said he has seen different outcomes in cases involving violence.

“In my observation of other sentencings in Mesa County courts, I have seen individuals convicted of violent crimes… receive significantly lighter sentences,” Babcox wrote in his affidavit.

Babcox also wrote that the judge’s language and demeanor caused him to question whether Barrett could remain impartial in future proceedings.

Affidavits from Edminister and Babcox, filed as exhibits to the motion to disqualify Judge Barrett. Pages 29-32.

Barrett rejected a similar motion in 2022

This is not the first time Peters has sought to remove Barrett.

A similar motion was denied in an order dated Aug. 23, 2022.

Order denying Peters’ 2022 motion to disqualify Judge Barrett, filed as an exhibit to the current motion. Pages 19-23.

In that order, Barrett wrote that “what occurs in front of a judge, or during a case, is rarely enough to warrant disqualification in that case.”

​​Barrett also laid out the standard he said governs recusal: a judge must step aside when “a reasonable observer might have doubts about the judge’s impartiality.” He concluded that standard was not met in 2022.

That earlier reasoning now sits in tension with the appellate court’s finding that the sentencing relied, at least in part, on protected speech.

State attorneys are expected to argue the judge’s comments fall within the normal scope of judicial conduct. The defense argues the appellate ruling changes that equation.

Barrett told Polis he takes no position on clemency

On the same day the recusal motion was filed, Barrett added documents to the record related to Peters’ clemency request.

In a January letter to Gov. Jared Polis, Barrett said he would “take no position” on clemency while defending the sentence he imposed.

He wrote that he considered the convictions, the underlying conduct and “the harm to our community and state” in choosing a sentence within the statutory range.

In a follow-up email, he reiterated that, “I continue to have no position on the request.”

Barrett’s January 13, 2026 letter to Gov. Jared Polis declining to take a position on Peters’ clemency petition. Page 2.

Those statements now sit alongside the defense’s claims of bias—and the appellate court’s conclusion that protected speech factored into the sentence.

The standard Barrett applied to Polis

Barrett’s January letter to the governor closed with a line about deference.

“I trust whatever decision you make will be for the right reasons,” he wrote to Polis, “after consideration of all relevant information, and with fair deference to the work of those in your co-equal branch of government.”

The motion now asks him to apply that same standard to himself.