Tina Peters asks Colorado Supreme Court to overturn convictions after juror wondered if she was “targeted”

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice

Business phone lines belonging to a juror were cut on the first Friday of Tina Peters’ trial. For the next 10 days, the juror wondered if she was being “targeted.” 

The Colorado Court of Appeals said in April that none of that required a hearing. 

Peters is now asking the Colorado Supreme Court to rule otherwise.

Peters’ lawyers say what happened with the juror had a solution that was set by precedent, a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. And they asked for it—a hearing to investigate whether outside influence may have affected the juror. 

Peters’ attorneys filed the motion for the hearing on September 20, 2024. Barrett turned it down later that afternoon. This spring, the Court of Appeals agreed with him.

What the juror said

Peters’ trial began July 29, 2024. On Friday, August 2, one juror’s business phone lines had been cut.

She reported the crime to police and spent $4,000 restoring the phone lines. Then she went back to the jury box. 

On August 12, 2024, the jury convicted Peters on four felony counts and three misdemeanors. For over a week leading up to the verdict, the juror wondered whether she was being targeted. The court and attorneys never heard about it.

That changed weeks later. A private investigator working for the defense contacted the juror. Their conversation was recorded.

At the time, she said, “It made me very concerned.”

Another statement in the petition says: “When the phone line got cut that first Friday, I was like done,” and “it was enough to make me go, I don’t want nothing to do with it, especially with who it was.”

On September 20, 2024 at 7:43 in the morning, Peters’ attorneys filed a supplemental brief in Mesa County District Court asking for a new trial with the juror interview as an exhibit.

And at 12:13 that same afternoon Barrett denied the request for a hearing. He sentenced Peters to eight years and nine months in prison two weeks later.

What the appeals court said

When the appellate court reversed Peters’ sentence on First Amendment grounds on April 2, the defense had brought the juror issue to their attention. 

Barrett’s ruling received their support, and said he had applied the Colorado Rule of Evidence 606(b) properly. The rule generally limits what attorneys and judges can ask jurors about their verdict.

But that rule has exceptions, including one that applies when a juror is improperly influenced from outside the courtroom—and also when a stranger makes contact, or if a bribe or threat is made. 

The appellate court ruled Peters had not properly invoked one of those exceptions.

The opinion also never quotes the juror’s recorded statements about feeling “targeted,” the cut phone lines or the $4,000 repair bill. 

The cases Peters says should have applied

Remmer v. United States started with a juror approached during trial by a stranger who suggested he could “profit” from the verdict.

The juror reported it to the trial judge. The judge brought in the prosecutor. The prosecutor brought in the FBI. None of them told the defense. The defendant was convicted, found out about the contact afterward, and appealed.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the trial judge should have stopped and held a hearing. The court said any unauthorized contact with a juror during a trial about the case is presumed to be harmful to the defendant. The trial court’s job, the justices said, is to find out what happened and decide whether it affected the jury. That ruling came to be called a Remmer hearing, and federal courts have applied it ever since.

A 1996 case called United States v. Cheek involved a juror who was driven by a stranger to a bondsman’s office during trial, where he saw a defendant standing inside. The juror was shaken enough that he walked four to five miles home. He never reported it to the court. The defense found out only after the verdict.

The Fourth Circuit ruled that the trial court was required to question the juror after the fact. And said that a post-trial hearing in those circumstances was “not only permissible but necessary.”

Peters’ attorneys argue the Supreme Court has already recognized that jury room secrecy is not absolute. In Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, the nation’s highest court ruled that evidence of racial bias during deliberations justifies looking behind a verdict, even under the protections of Rule 606(b). The case involved reports that a juror made anti-Hispanic statements during deliberations, prompting the justices to carve out an exception tied to a defendant’s right to an impartial jury.

Peters argues the court treated Rule 606(b) as a wall around the jury room, when the rule allows investigation into credible claims of outside influence.

What the Supreme Court could now do

The case now waits for a decision from Colorado’s highest court. If the justices decline to intervene, the April ruling from the Court of Appeals remains in effect and Peters’ convictions stay in place.

If they agree to take the case, they will next choose which questions to review. 

The juror question is the first. Second is whether the Supremacy Clause insulated Peters from criminal charges tied to actions she says were taken to preserve election records under federal law. It further claims the trial court limited her ability to present a complete defense by excluding evidence her attorneys say went to the heart of the case.

The court can take any combination of those issues.

Polis commuted Peters’ sentence on May 15, but the convictions themselves remain intact.

Peters is asking the Colorado Supreme Court to reopen the August 12, 2024 verdict that convicted her on four felonies and three misdemeanors.