Members of the Colorado Supreme Court questioned on Tuesday whether a San Miguel County jury convicted a defendant of child abuse resulting in death, even though the instructions potentially allowed jurors to avoid finding that the child abuse resulted in death.

Previously, the state’s Court of Appeals reversed the convictions and 64-year prison sentence of Madani Ceus. In the appellate court’s view, the instructions could have allowed the jury to convict Ceus without linking the child abuse to the victims’ deaths.

But during oral arguments to the Supreme Court, the government maintained there was no mystery about what jurors had to decide.

“From the moment the jury arrived and filled out questionnaires, it was clear that this case always was about death,” said First Assistant Attorney General Erin K. Grundy.

Justice Richard L. Gabriel acknowledged that the phrase “Child Abuse Resulting in Death” appeared on the form, but the wording of the instruction suggested that jurors could find the child abuse resulted in death for just one of the three ways of committing the crime.

“The jury could have picked any of the three means, and there’s no instruction,” he said. “The jury wasn’t ever told, ‘You must find her child abuse caused death.'”

Hannah Marshall, 8, and Makayla Roberts, 10, were discovered dead and decomposing in a vehicle located on Frederick “Alec” Blair’s Norwood farm in 2017. A forensic examiner was unable to conclusively state the cause of death because of the condition of the girls’ bodies, but evidence suggested starvation, dehydration and hyperthermia were factors.

Jurors heard that Ceus was the spiritual leader of the group of itinerant adults and children living on the farm. At some point, the victims were left to live in a car with no food. Ceus directed that no one contact them, and she physically distanced her family from the victims.

Jurors convicted the children’s mother of murder and Ceus’ husband of child abuse resulting in death. Blair also received a 12-year prison sentence for his involvement.

Following her own convictions, Ceus contended the trial judge incorrectly instructed the jury about the charges. Under Colorado law, child abuse is a misdemeanor that can be committed in three ways:

• By causing an injury to a child’s life or health

• By permitting a child to be unreasonably placed in a life- or health-threatening situation

• By engaging in a continued pattern of malnourishment, lack of proper medical care, cruel punishment, mistreatment, or an accumulation of injuries leading to death or serious injury

The crime becomes a felony if a person acts knowingly or recklessly and the child abuse results in death. Colorado’s template jury instructions contain a special form asking jurors, if they find a person committed child abuse, “Did the child abuse result in death?”

District Court Judge Keri A. Yoder gave jurors an instruction that deviated from the template. Ceus argued on appeal that it only required a finding of death for the third method of child abuse, not for the other two possible methods. A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals agreed the defect meant Ceus only stood convicted of misdemeanor child abuse.

“Without an instruction requiring the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Ceus’s abuse resulted in the children’s death, we are unable to conclude the instructional error was harmless,” wrote Judge Stephanie Dunn.

The Colorado Attorney General’s Office argued it was inconceivable that jurors would have convicted Ceus without finding that the child abuse resulted in death. Moreover, Grundy contended the evidence showed Ceus was guilty, even if she was not directly responsible for someone else’s children.

“We agree that, as a general concept in criminal law, you don’t have a duty to someone else. But if you push someone in the pool, you have a duty to help them get out,” she said. Ceus “pushed them in the pool and she left them there.”

“What do the guilty verdicts tell us here?” asked Justice Carlos A. Samour Jr. “If the evidence was sufficient, what do they convey from the jury?”

Public defender Lisa Weisz responded that jurors were not required to select a single method of child abuse resulting in death, so it was unknown what they believed.

“They found that she committed child abuse, and they found that beyond a reasonable doubt,” pressed Samour. “She kicked the children off the grounds. They were left in a car. They were not getting water. They were not getting food. That was the abuse.”

The victims’ mother “was there to take care of them, as she always had. And Ms. Ceus had no reason to believe that the mother would stop suddenly caring for them,” said Weisz.

“Does it matter that Ms. Ceus seemed to hold sway over (the mother) and was manipulating her psychologically, from the prosecution’s perspective?” asked Justice William W. Hood III.

Or that she told people to stay away from the car, added Chief Justice Monica M. Márquez.

And yet, said Gabriel, the Court of Appeals read the instruction form to allow jurors to convict Ceus of a felony if she only caused an injury or unreasonably placed the victims in a life-threatening scenario.

“Couldn’t the jury here find what was defined as ‘child abuse resulting in death’ on either of those first two choices, where death was not required?” he wondered.

The case is People v. Ceus.