Polis explained both commutations in writing. One drew a party revolt.

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice

Democrats organized a censure push over Tina Peters. No comparable campaign emerged over the commutation of Brandin Kreuzer.

On the same day Gov. Jared Polis commuted Tina Peters’ sentence, he granted clemency to a man convicted of shooting a Douglas County sheriff’s deputy during a 2008 crime spree.

Peters drew a formal complaint signed by hundreds of Democrats, an impeachment call and a sitting U.S. senator’s rebuke. The other commutation drew none of that. No party complaint. No impeachment call. No signature drive. Polis put both of his reasons in writing.

Two letters, one day

Brandin Kreuzer was charged with attempted first-degree murder of a peace officer and convicted of first-degree assault, along with second-degree kidnapping, aggravated robbery and multiple counts of burglary and vehicle theft, after a 2008 crime spree across Douglas County. A jury acquitted him of the attempted murder charge. 

The charges and convictions are recorded in executive order C 2026 037 and contemporaneous reporting of the 2010 trial. He was sentenced to 50 years. 

The order, signed May 15, commuted that sentence and granted him parole effective June 1.

Peters was convicted in 2024 on seven counts stemming from a 2021 breach of Mesa County’s election equipment. The Colorado Court of Appeals upheld all seven convictions April 2 but vacated her nine-year sentence, finding the trial court improperly weighed her protected speech about election fraud claims, and sent the case back for resentencing. 

That resentencing had not happened when Executive Order C 2026 039, also signed May 15, commuted her sentence to 4 years and 4.5 months and granted her parole effective June 1.

In both cases, Polis used clemency to shorten the time served while the underlying convictions remained intact. Polis explained each decision in a separate letter. The letters are public, released by the Governor’s Office. 

Gov. Polis’s clemency letters to Brandin Kreuzer, left, and Tina Peters, right, both signed May 15. The Kreuzer letter appears on page 40 of the clemency letters released by the Governor’s Office; the Peters letter on page 44.

What Polis wrote

The Kreuzer letter is built on what Polis describes as rehabilitation. He calls the 50-year term “disproportionate,” notes Kreuzer has served more than 15 years and writes that a codefendant “was only 6 months younger” and “was sentenced to 7 years in the Youthful Offender System.” 

Kreuzer has no code-of-penal-discipline violations, completed a welding apprenticeship and college courses, and built a prison fitness program Polis says “expanded to other prisons and has engaged over 2,000 inmates.” Polis writes that Kreuzer is “remorseful” and “has shown that rehabilitation is possible.”

The Peters letter rests on a different basis. Polis cites the Court of Appeals’ First Amendment finding, quoting the panel’s ruling that a sentence based to any degree on protected First Amendment activity is constitutionally invalid. 

He calls the nine-year term “extremely unusual” for a first-time nonviolent offender. The clemency application Polis acted on, and posted publicly on Peters’ website, runs nine pages and argues sentencing disparity through eleven reported Colorado appellate cases and a comparison to Peters’ own codefendants. 

In it, Peters states: “Four years ago, I misled the Secretary of State when allowing a person to gain access to county voting equipment. That was wrong.” 

Polis writes that her application “demonstrates taking responsibility,” while stating the crimes “are very serious” and that she deserved to spend time in prison.

One letter turns on an enumerated prison record. The other turns on an appellate court’s constitutional finding and a sentencing-disparity argument. 

Both letters include arguments about disproportionate sentencing. In Kreuzer’s, Polis points to a codefendant he says received far less time. In Peters’ case, the clemency application Polis acted on makes the same disparity argument about her codefendants. 

Whatever the merits in either case, the governor applied a similar logic to both, and drew opposite political reactions. 

The deputy who was shot

The Kreuzer commutation drew sustained public criticism, and not from the Democrats organizing over Peters. It came from the agency that worked the case and the officer who was wounded.

In an official statement, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office described a 2008 spree of residential and business burglaries, vehicle thefts, an armed robbery and kidnapping at a Castle Rock gas station, and a high-speed pursuit on Highway 105 during which Kreuzer fired on pursuing deputies. Deputy Todd Tucker was struck in the arm, sustaining permanent damage. A round fired at Cpl. Mike Adams struck the center of his windshield.

Sheriff Darren Weekly, the agency’s special investigations commander on the case in 2008, said in the statement that he had spoken with both wounded deputies “and they are absolutely furious, as am I.” 

On the Jeff and Bill Show, a conservative talk program on KNUS in Denver, Weekly called the commutation “ridiculous” and “inexcusable” and said he had sat with Tucker and his wife after the shooting and promised them he would catch the men responsible.

Tucker, now a retired lieutenant working in law enforcement in Maryland, was quoted directly in the sheriff’s office statement.

“Governor Polis’ decision sends a dangerous and demoralizing message: that the attempted murder of a police officer no longer carries the weight or accountability it once did,” Tucker said.

Weekly noted the timing. Polis signed the order on May 15, National Peace Officers Memorial Day, the federal day of recognition for law enforcement officers killed or disabled in the line of duty.

A disputed claim in the letter

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and the original prosecuting district attorney have each said publicly that the clemency rested on false information.

The Kreuzer letter states the codefendant “was only 6 months younger” and “was sentenced to 7 years in the Youthful Offender System.” 

Weekly, who named the codefendant as Taylor Moudy, said flatly on the talk program: “That’s completely false. That never happened.” District Attorney George Brauchler, who prosecuted the case, said the decision “was based on a couple of lies that he told to Colorado and has since tried to cover up.” 

The sheriff’s office statement said the commutation was, in its view, “based on faulty information.”

Contemporaneous reporting supports the dispute. A Colorado Community Media account from August 2010, reporting on the convictions, stated that Moudy was sentenced on May 24, 2010, to 45 years in prison for his part in the crime spree, not the seven-year youth-offender term the letter describes.

RMV is seeking the official court records on the codefendant’s sentence. The dispute here rests on the sheriff’s office, the wounded officer, the prosecuting district attorney and contemporaneous reporting. Polis’s office has not publicly addressed it. 

What the contrast shows

Both commutations took effect the same day and grant parole June 1. Each followed convictions that remained intact on appeal. 

One produced a complaint signed by hundreds of Democrats, an impeachment call and a senator’s declaration that the decision was disqualifying. The other produced the sheriff’s office, the wounded officer and the prosecuting district attorney.

The night of the commutations, Senate President Pro Tem Cathy Kipp condemned Polis’s “decision to preempt the courts and commute the sentence of a still-unremorseful Tina Peters.” Assistant Senate majority leader Lisa Cutter called it “outrageous that the Governor decided to override the court’s decision and commute Tina Peters’ sentence.” 

The Colorado Democratic Party issued a formal statement on the Peters’ commutation the same day.

RMV reviewed the public statements and accounts of the censure complaint’s author and its most prominent signers, including the party, Kipp, Cutter, Sen. Michael Bennet and attorney general candidate David Seligman, and found none addressing the Kreuzer commutation. The party’s press page carries its Peters’ statement and none on Kreuzer. RMV has requested comment from the Colorado Democrat Party and will update this story with any response.

The censure complaint says it is written to defend election workers and democratic institutions. It does not mention Kreuzer. That absence is not proof of anything by itself. It is the shape of the response, set against the documents that produced it.

The party that moved against Polis over one letter has not moved over the other. The censure push, the impeachment call and what they can actually do are covered in a companion piece.