Colorado’s second-highest court concluded for the first time on Wednesday that a defendant may be charged with violating a child custody order based on the number of children affected, not the number of orders violated.

Mesa County jurors convicted Tiffany Jean Wilson on four counts of violating a custody order. She drove off with her children after a caseworker confronted her with a court order turning over temporary custody to the county. For those and other offenses, Wilson received a jail sentence plus probation.

On appeal, Wilson challenged her four separate felony convictions for violating a custody order. Colorado law applies to anyone who violates “an order” with the intent to deprive a guardian “of the custody or care of a child.”

“The ‘underlying crime’ — violation of a court custody order — remains the same regardless of the number of children the relevant order affects,” wrote public defender Emily Hessler. “It was uncontested that there was one court order in this case. Wilson’s four (convictions) are multiplicitous in contravention of her rights under the Double Jeopardy Clauses.”

A three-judge Court of Appeals panel disagreed.

“We conclude this language is unambiguous and suggests that the legislature did not intend to require a unique custody order for each individual child,” wrote Judge Rebecca R. Freyre in the Dec. 24 opinion. “Instead, its repeated reference to ‘a child’ in defining violation of a custody order evinces an intent to criminalize violation of a custody order with respect to each child identified in the order.”

She added that the law, in context, addresses “the impact of the defendant’s actions” on children, and not simply the act of violating an order.

The case is People v. Wilson.