DENVER — A small group huddled together Tuesday, chatting excitedly and holding colorful balloons as they waited for Robin Farris to walk through the doors of the Colorado Women’s Correctional Facility in Denver for the first time in more than 32 years.
When the time finally came, Farris, overcome with emotion, hugged her attorneys tightly, thanking them, and then embraced each family member. But it wasn’t until her 38-year-old daughter walked in to greet the mom she lost to prison at just 6 years old that the crowd took a step back.
Janell Farris cried into her mother’s arms as the pair rocked back and forth.
“We get to walk out of here,” Robin Farris said as she held her. “We’re leaving.”
Farris’ request for clemency was granted by Gov. Jared Polis in December. The 61-year-old was convicted in 1991 of killing the Aurora woman she was dating at the time, Beatrice King, and her 2014 clemency petition was denied by then-Gov. John Hickenlooper. In 2021, her application sat unanswered on Polis’ desk. In 2022, the governor approved it. Farris became the first Black woman in three decades to receive a sentence commutation by a Colorado governor, even though data shows Black women are incarcerated at three times the rate of white women. Farris also became the first woman Polis granted a sentence commutation to during his term.
But the final decision was up to a parole board, and last month, the board determined Farris, the longest-serving woman in Colorado prison, should be released. King’s family has continuously opposed Farris’ release, saying their loved one is being forgotten by the system and that the attention to Farris and her release is politically motivated.
A sentence commutation is not a pardon — the felony murder conviction will remain on Farris’ record. But now, she has an opportunity to reconnect with family and friends and live outside the prison walls. Farris already has a place to stay, a car her dad left her before he died, and a job working with her cousin’s daughter. She, and those around her, say she has transformed her life while in prison. She received a scholarship and earned a degree, completed multiple certifications, became a mentor for other women in prison — including teen girls in the “Shape-Up” juvenile justice diversion program — and she began the process of healing from her life’s traumas. She believes her purpose is to continue helping women who are often overlooked in the criminal justice system.
Farris’ attorneys Kristen Nelson, director of the Spero Justice Center, and Risa Wolf-Smith of Holland & Hart, took on her clemency petition pro bono, and have said that Farris is the kind of person who deserves clemency. She has taken responsibility for her actions and is remorseful, as Farris herself has said repeatedly.
“(Clemency) does not wipe away the mistakes, it does not wipe away the guilt and the accountability for what put the person in there. … I will never be in a state of rest because I understand what led me into prison, the gravity of it and the responsibility that I will always carry because of it,” Farris told The Denver Post in a phone interview from prison in January.
Additionally, the Colorado Legislature has changed sentencing laws since Farris was first convicted, and those who commit similar crimes today can be charged to a lesser degree, giving a judge more discretion on sentencing. Even those who receive the harshest sentence possible would become eligible for parole earlier than the length of time Farris would have to wait.
When news spread of Farris’ release, she said so many women came up to her and thanked her, even those who didn’t know her, because she had given them hope.
Her attorneys said her release felt surreal as they wiped away tears of joy. That’s partly because of how few women, particularly women of color, have been granted clemency in Colorado.
Women make up a small percentage of the prison population compared to men, so their issues tend to get eclipsed by men’s issues in prison, Nelson said. Studies have also linked women’s experiences of gender-based violence to their entries into the criminal justice system, and that can make them feel unworthy and less likely to advocate for themselves, she said.
Hickenlooper and former Gov. Bill Ritter each granted a sentence commutation to one woman and Gov. Bill Owens didn’t grant any, according to data collected by the Spero Justice Center. Gov. Roy Romer granted clemency to five, and that’s attributed to efforts by a battered women’s clemency clinic at the University of Denver in the late 1990s.
“It’s really my hope that this case can bring heightened awareness to the unique and particularly vulnerable ways that women often end up in the criminal legal system,” Nelson said. “Robin’s story has to be understood in context. She experienced a very traumatic sexual assault in her early 20s. It was that event that shook her sense of safety to the point where she felt that she had to carry a gun in her purse with her at all times. This isn’t an excuse for the crime, but it explains why it happened.”
The Battered Women’s Clemency Project at DU was run from the fall of 1997 through 1998, and it was an enormous undertaking, according to one of its directors Jaqueline St. Joan, but it was intended to provide clemency candidates to outgoing governor Romer.
St. Joan was the first judge in Denver to form and preside in the protection order court in Denver and worked on the clinic with her colleague Nancy Ehrenreich.
The directors believed that women and men who were abused and later killed another person should be examined periodically for clemency consideration, something they realized required specialized advocacy work. Their work was so successful that after presenting three clients to the clemency board, the governor’s office at the time asked for applications, St. Joan said.
Ultimately, Romer granted commutations to four people from the clinic — three women who were victims of abuse and one man who killed his dad after seeing him abuse his mom and siblings. One of the women had been convicted of killing her husband who played Russian Roulette with her and beat her so intensely, she had multiple miscarriages, according to St. Joan and Ehrenreich.
A sentence commutation is a second chance, something Farris said she is extremely grateful to Polis for giving her and that she hopes will continue for other women.
And now that Farris has earned a reputation for helping and uplifting others, Janell wants her mother doing the same for her so she can learn from her — “Can I get her now?” she said, half smiling and half crying.
Farris immediately jumped into a motherly role — “You’re a strong woman. You don’t give yourself enough credit,” she said.
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