Colorado’s second-highest court overturned a man’s murder conviction and life sentence on Thursday after concluding a Denver judge gave a problematic self-defense instruction to jurors, casting doubt on the verdict.

Jurors delivered a split verdict, acquitting Oscar D. Villegas-Ortega of first-degree murder after deliberation, but convicting him of another murder charge as well as manslaughter and assault.

A three-judge Court of Appeals panel noted that, problematically, the self-defense instruction then-District Court Judge Brian R. Whitney gave for the acquitted count was different from the instruction for the convicted counts — even though the self-defense issue was identical across all charges.

“While we are unable to reconstruct the jury’s precise reasoning, the fact that the jury reached these verdicts while applying inconsistent self-defense instructions casts serious doubt on Villegas-Ortega’s convictions. Under these circumstances, we conclude that reversal is required,” wrote Judge Matthew D. Grove in the June 5 opinion.

Villegas-Ortega was attending a birthday party at a restaurant in June 2020. In his telling, another man was jealous of and upset at him, prompting him to leave. The other man recalled Villegas-Ortega was the only one who “wasn’t happy.” The dispute culminated in a melee outside, with Villegas-Ortega pulling out his gun and fatally shooting Fausto Marquez. He also stabbed two others present.

Prosecutors charged Villegas-Ortega with murder after deliberation, the lesser offense of second-degree murder, extreme indifference murder and other related offenses.

Villegas-Ortega argued he acted in self-defense. Prior to trial, the defense proposed an instruction describing the principle as applying when “conditions and circumstances” are “sufficient to require action.” A second proposed instruction would tell jurors to look at the “totality of circumstances, including the number of persons reasonably appearing to be threatening the accused” when evaluating self-defense.

Whitney declined to give both instructions.

While the jury was deliberating, it sent a question to Whitney. The question referenced the instruction for murder after deliberation and second-degree murder, which indicated Villegas-Ortega was justified in using deadly force if he feared the imminent use of force “by that other person.”

“Does the use of the phrase ‘that other person’,” wrote the jury, “necessitate that the other person was the deceased (Fausto Marquez) to justify or warrant self-defense?”

Whitney agreed the instruction as written contained an “incorrect statement of law.” After conferring with the prosecution and the defense, Whitney told jurors to read the instruction to mean Villegas-Ortega was authorized to use deadly force to defend himself against force “by that other person, or by persons acting in concert with that other person.”

After the clarification, jurors acquitted Villegas-Ortega of only the murder charge for which Whitney had clarified the language. They convicted Villegas-Ortega of other offenses, including the extreme indifference murder charge, that relied on the same self-defense principles — and the same condition of “that other person,” Marquez, potentially using force.

On appeal, the government dismissed the discrepancy by arguing jurors would have applied the corrected language “across all the self-defense instructions in which the phrase appeared.” But the appellate panel was not convinced.

“While it is true that the court’s response addressed the question that the jury asked,” Grove wrote, “the response failed to address the broader issue that the question implicated and, therefore, leaves us with serious doubts about the soundness of the jury’s verdict on the other charges that involved a claim of self-defense.”

He elaborated that jurors seemed unsure whether to consider the threat posed to Villegas-Ortega by other participants in the fight, and not just Marquez. The risk of Whitney’s clarification was that jurors only considered the broader threat for one murder charge, but not the remaining charges.

“Indeed, the jury acquitted Villegas-Ortega of the two offenses for which the court correctly instructed the jury,” Grove concluded, “and it found him guilty of three of the four offenses that lacked this clarification.”

The panel ordered a new trial.

The case is People v. Villegas-Ortega.