DENVER — Gov. Jared Polis unilaterally stalled a specialized prison program aimed at rehabilitating and releasing people who have served decades behind bars for crimes they committed as juveniles and young adults, The Denver Post found.

Polis has not approved any of the program’s graduates for early release since 2023 — an about-face from the prior three years, during which the governor approved releases for all 17 such prisoners, according to records kept by the Colorado Department of Corrections.

The governor’s inaction has created a backlog of 11 prisoners who have completed the three-year program and have gone before the Colorado State Parole Board but are nevertheless still incarcerated, waiting for Polis to sign off on their freedom.

“The uncertainty of the situation is one of the scariest things I have ever gone through, because it pertains to the emotion of hope,” said prisoner Rory Atkins, 55, who was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole for a murder he committed in 1988, when he was 18. “Many of us with long sentences in prison kind of accept that hope is painful. You learn to be fearful of having high hopes.”

Colorado lawmakers created the Juveniles and Young Adults Convicted as Adults Program, or JYACAP, in 2016 after the U.S. Supreme Court found that children are constitutionally different from adults and should not be automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Lawmakers that year also changed Colorado law to prohibit such punishment.

Initially limited to juveniles, the program was expanded in 2021 to include prisoners who committed a crime when they were 20 or younger and who have served at least 20 years of their sentence. The prisoners must also meet a variety of other conditions to enter the three-year program, which focuses on building life skills and preparing for life outside of prison.

After prisoners finish the program, the governor — after receiving a recommendation from the parole board — must give the final approval for them to be released on early parole.

“For whatever reason, there was this dollop of mercy that was required (in the law),” said Ann Roan, a retired attorney who represented a program participant. “And for years it has worked well. … So to have the brakes put on it so suddenly, with no explanation whatsoever, has really upended everyone’s justified expectations.”

Shelby Wieman, a spokeswoman for Polis, said in a statement that the prisoners’ applications are still under review, that the governor “takes these decisions very seriously” and that the serious nature of prisoners’ crimes requires “careful deliberation.”

“The governor’s office has also previously expressed discomfort with the governor’s role in the process, and proposed legislative changes to this program in the past, which the legislature declined to address,” Wieman said, apparently referring to a failed 2024 bill that would have cut the governor out of the process and shifted full authority for early releases to the parole board.

“We look forward to continuing to explore potential improvements with legislators and stakeholders,” Wieman said.

She did not answer questions about what changed from the program’s first few years, when Polis routinely approved graduates’ releases.

‘Like we are being just dropped’

The governor’s inaction comes as he considers whether to commute the sentence for Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk serving a nine-year prison sentence for crimes related to unauthorized access to state voting machines, and as he did not issue end-of-year pardons and sentence commutations for the first time in his tenure.

The state’s prisons are also nearly at capacity and are projected to run out of beds in the coming months.

“We feel like we are being just dropped,” said Rose Martinez, who is waiting for the release of her cousin, Daniel Reyes, 56. He is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole for a 1987 homicide he committed during a robbery when he was 18.

Martinez has, over the last decade, watched her cousin yearn for release as his 2027 parole eligibility date has drawn closer.

“I’ll never forget the day he told me, ‘I can’t wait until I can be outside of these walls and I can actually lean up against a tree,'” she said. “That was probably five years ago.”

Reyes has been waiting for the governor’s sign-off since April, he said. Atkins’ wait began in July, when the parole board recommended his release, he said. Others in the program, like Raymond Gone, who killed a Denver police officer in 1995 when he was 16, have been waiting on the governor for more than a year, he said.

“What would I say to the critics who say the crime I was convicted of was so serious that I should finish my entire sentence? Honestly, I would agree with them, if all I knew was that I was convicted of such a horrible crime,” said Gone, now 47. “…I know I am responsible, I am the cause, for an unfathomable amount of trauma in so many people’s lives. There isn’t any amount of time I could spend in this place to make up for what I did.

“But the opportunity I have been given through JYACAP was only made available to me because of a Supreme Court ruling… someone way above me decided that my life was worth saving and should be given a second chance.”

Since 2017, 112 prisoners have applied to participate in the JYACAP program; 44 were accepted, according to the Department of Corrections. Prisoners were denied for poor behavior in prison, the nature of the crimes they committed, and for not meeting the program’s basic eligibility requirements.

Last year, 40-year-old Raul Gomez-Garcia, who killed a Denver police officer in 2005 when he was 19, was denied entry to the program after his application stirred outrage within the slain officer’s family and the police department.

None of the 17 people released after completing the program have had their parole revoked, said Alondra Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections. One participant had “subsequent involvement with the criminal justice system,” she said, but it did not prompt parole revocation. She did not answer follow-up questions about that participant.

“Nobody reoffends, because they’ve grown up,” said Roan, who previously represented Gone. “…Every one of us at some point has been 16, and a lot of us who have children have watched what it is to be 16 from that perspective, and I don’t think anyone would say that is who you are for the rest of your life.”

‘A program that he signed into law’

Phillip “Mike” Montoya went into the JYACAP program after he’d spent 26 years behind bars. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison after he participated in a 1993 gang shooting as a 16-year-old, although he did not actually fire the fatal shot.

He found the program to be too basic at times, with tedious instruction on very basic tasks like how to brush your teeth or how to use a spatula. The curriculum wasn’t tailored to each individual, he noted.

“If you go inside the prison at 16 years old and maybe you never done anything in your life prior, like cook for yourself, do your own laundry, go to a grocery store and buy your own food, then maybe you are going to need a lot more assistance,” he said. “But for someone like me, I pretty much had to raise myself. I had to raise my brother and sisters. So going into prison, even though I went in at such a young age, I had a lot of knowledge of the world.”

Still, he is quick to praise the program’s pathway to release and the second chance it gives people who have been imprisoned since they were teenagers. Montoya has been working as a barber since he got out in August 2023, about three years before his parole eligibility date. He ultimately served 30 years and two days.

He’s tried to advocate for the program’s other participants, he said, seeking out meetings with officials and stakeholders.

“The response has always been the same, that (Polis) doesn’t want to deal with it for political reasons,” he said. “…We’re talking about a program that he signed into law that he doesn’t believe in now.”

Gone, Atkins and Reyes will each become eligible for parole in the coming years, prison records show. Reyes will be eligible in 2027, while Gone and Atkins will be eligible in 2030. Once they hit that mark, the parole board can release them without the governor’s sign-off.

Already, the parole board released two prisoners in 2024 and 2025 who completed the JYACAP program and reached their regular parole eligibility dates while waiting for Polis’ approval for early release, Gonzalez said.

For T’Naus Nieto, whose father is about to finish the program and join the small number of prisoners waiting for Polis’ final approval, the difference between an early release through JYACAP and a regular release when his father reaches parole eligibility in 2032 is significant.

Nieto wants his own children to grow up with their grandfather.

“My youngest is 5 and I have my daughter who is 8,” Nieto said. “So you are talking about a difference of six years. Six years to an 8-year-old. Do the math, and you miss out on their entire childhood. So just the fact that he could be in their lives for just a few short years makes a huge difference for a child.”

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