Colorado Gov. Jared Polis pardoned 27 people for relatively minor crimes on Thursday as he nears the end of his time in office, and among them is a name familiar to Aurora residents: Vanessa Peoples, whose 2017 misdemeanor case became entangled with a police use-of-force settlement years later. The convictions stretched from 1975 to 2017 and ranged from trespassing to robbery, a snapshot of the kinds of old cases Polis has spent his governorship revisiting.
According to the Journal-Advocate, Peoples received a misdemeanor ticket in 2017 after her son briefly wandered away from her at a park. She pleaded guilty in a deal that kept her out of jail, and was sentenced to probation and ordered to complete parenting classes, the outlet reported. The same report notes her convictions sat alongside those of 26 others pardoned the same day, whose crimes included drug possession, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, theft, burglary and robbery, among other offenses.
A Settlement That Came Years Later
Peoples' name had already surfaced in Colorado news well before this week's pardons. The Denver Post reported that the Aurora City Council approved a $100,000 settlement with her on Sept. 4, 2018, tied to officers' use of force during the incident, though the city did not admit wrongdoing. That same account, detailed by The Denver Post, noted that none of the officers involved were found to have violated departmental policies.
Even after the settlement, the criminal record stuck around and followed her into the job market. By 2021, Peoples told the paper she still had a criminal record that prevented her from getting a job, despite having earned a nursing certificate from Emily Griffith Technical College in the years since her arrest, per the Journal-Advocate's account of the pardon.
Polis' Message And Peoples' Reaction
In his letter to Peoples, Polis wrote that her family, friends and supporters described her as a devoted mother whose strength, work ethic and determination had carried her through adversity, according to the Journal-Advocate. To those he pardoned more broadly, the governor wrote, “Not everyone earns the privilege of a second chance, but you have demonstrated that you deserve one.”
Peoples said she was in tears upon learning of the pardon, and said she hopes it will help her secure a job and housing going forward, the outlet reported. Others pardoned in the same batch included Victor Arellano, Richard Batdorf, Timothy Cordova, Luis Day, Mitchell Downing, Scott Ellison, Daniel Emmans, George Soon Fah, Matthew Focht, Craig Gipson, Phillip Hengemuhle, Ethan Hilton, Daniel Kelly, Thomas Knowles, Bruce Korum, Christina Latimore, Michael Low, Yeu Ly, DeAnna Martinez, Justin Mills, Sabrina Montoya, Joshua Moore, Walter Spangler, Veronica Stewart, Kelly Stovall and Jordan Wood.
Part Of A Broader Clemency Pattern
Thursday's batch fits into a pattern Polis has built over his governorship. Colorado Public Radio reported in January that his clemency record included 25 commutations and thousands of pardons according to his office, a tally that included 4,083 marijuana possession pardons and four for psilocybin and psilocin possession, as The Colorado Sun later detailed. By August, the Sun reported Polis had granted 165 pardons and 35 commutations since taking office, including a round of 29 pardons that month and 35 pardons with eight commutations back in May.
The Sun also noted that the prior year, Polis had issued 22 pardons and commuted four sentences, suggesting this year's pace has picked up. Separately, Colorado Public Radio reported that Polis commuted the sentences of three people who had been sentenced to death before Colorado banned capital punishment, changing those sentences to life without the possibility of parole.
His clemency actions have occasionally drawn statewide attention. In 2020, Colorado Public Radio reported, Polis commuted the sentence of Anthony Martinez, then 84, after Martinez had served 31 years of a life sentence. And in 2021, the station reported, Polis shortened by a full century the sentence of Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, the truck driver convicted in the fatal 28-car crash near Denver in 2019.
