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.”…