Four months after the state Supreme Court clarified the criteria for common law marriages in Colorado, the Court of Appeals once again overturned a woman’s convictions for theft of public assistance, finding she did not fail to report a spouse’s income after all.

Common law marriages require that partners consent to be married, hold themselves out as married to the community and believe that they are, in fact, married. With a package of rulings in January, the Supreme Court acknowledged that some traditional indicators of marriage – such as a wife taking her husband’s last name – were no longer reliable for determining relationship status. Instead, the overriding principle would be whether the parties intended to share a life together as spouses.

“In assessing whether a common law marriage has been established, courts should give weight to evidence reflecting a couple’s express agreement to marry,” wrote Justice Monica M. Márquez. “In the absence of such evidence, the parties’ agreement to enter a marital relationship may be inferred from their conduct.”

In the case of Heather Diane Williams, the Court of Appeals had previously determined she was not in a common law marriage, and reversed her convictions in February of last year. The Supreme Court set aside that decision and asked the Court of Appeals in March 2021 to once again review the case in light of its new dictate. The outcome was unchanged.

Authorities in Mesa County charged Williams with 37 counts of theft, forgery and attempting to influence a public servant after discovering she failed to report the income of her alleged common law spouse on her application to receive public assistance benefits. Her sentence was seven years of probation and a restitution amount of $8,451.

Although Williams reportedly had a ceremony and considered herself married “in my heart of hearts,” lived and shared a bedroom with her purported spouse, represented him as her children’s stepfather, and her children referred to him as “dad,” a three-judge Court of Appeals panel on Thursday did not believe those circumstances constituted proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a common law marriage.

There was no evidence, Judge Ted C. Tow III wrote, that the two adults “held themselves out to their friends and family as married, filed taxes jointly, had a mutual bank or credit account, or regularly shared income.”

As evidence for a lack of marriage, on the same job application in which Williams listed the man as her spouse in the emergency contact field, she represented her marital status as single. A neighbor of Williams’s also testified Williams publicly referred to the man as her “friend, roommate, and fiancé,” and not husband.

Although the children referred to the man as “dad,” that behavior “in no way implies the existence of a marriage,” Tow added.

The case is People v. Williams.