An Adams County judge should not have denied a defendant’s challenge to his convictions because he neglected to sign the bottom of his legal motion, Colorado’s Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday.

Uto Essien has filed multiple rounds of claims to protest his 2009 convictions and three-decade prison sentence for crimes related to mortgage fraud. Specifically, he argued that he failed to receive effective assistance of counsel. A trial judge held a hearing in 2014 and denied Essien relief, a decision that the Court of Appeals subsequently upheld.

Then in 2019, Essien filed another postconviction motion in Adams County District Court alleging the lawyer who represented him in his previous challenge was also ineffective. She did not adequately argue the theory that there was a complete breakdown in the relationship between Essien and his original trial attorney, which involved the attorney’s allegedly racist and demeaning statements about Essien, he claimed.

In December 2019, in a one-page order, then-Chief Judge Emily Anderson denied Essien’s petition without a hearing, noting he had failed to sign the form.

A postconviction petition “must substantially contain the information identified in Form 4 and Form 4 requires the signature of the petitioner,” Anderson wrote.

But a three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals disagreed with her conclusion, noting the rules of criminal procedure require defendants challenging their convictions to “substantially comply” with the court form.

Essien “did not sign the document but included all other required information. By doing so, his motion substantially complied,” wrote Judge Anthony J. Navarro in the March 23 opinion. He added that even if Essien had failed to substantially comply, the solution would be to direct him to fill out the form again.

“The court could not simply deny the motion for noncompliance,” Navarro explained.

The appellate panel also found Anderson had incorrectly deemed Essien’s 2019 petition “successive,” believing it raised claims about his trial counsel’s effectiveness that the Court of Appeals had already considered and rejected.

Essien stood trial for facilitating a multimillion-dollar scheme in which banks issued mortgages greater than the actual value of dozens of properties, but Essien and others took the excess amount for themselves. Essien had argued there was no deception because the banks were aware the loans included extra money to make repairs to the properties.

On the second day of his trial, Essien indicated he and his lawyer were not getting along and he received the judge’s permission to represent himself.

Essien received a postconviction hearing to explore his allegations that he should have received a new trial lawyer given the conflict with his attorney. A trial judge said no, and the Court of Appeals agreed in 2017 that Essien failed to establish a complete breakdown in communication or the existence of a conflict that could lead to an unjust verdict. His disagreements, the appellate court determined, were over “trial strategy.”

Essien’s new petition in 2019 raised an additional claim about his trial lawyer’s ineffectiveness, but also five new claims that his postconviction attorney had given him constitutionally-deficient representation at the hearing.

The postconviction lawyer allegedly neglected to challenge the trial lawyer’s shifting explanations for his decisions, nor did she present evidence that Essien’s original lawyer called him guilty prior to trial and said, “you Nigerians are known for doing crooked things.”

The Court of Appeals noted those allegations from Essien had yet to be explored, so Anderson was incorrect to deny the petition outright without a hearing. The panel declined to evaluate the merits of Essien’s claims, but returned his petition to Adams County for a reconsideration of whether Essien deserves a hearing.

The case is People v. Essien.