Colorado’s second-highest court reversed a defendant’s convictions and 12-year prison sentence earlier this month after an El Paso County judge did not require prosecutors to prove key facts that were, after all, subject to dispute.

Prosecutors charged Noel Lavertt King Jr. with numerous offenses after he entered the victim’s home and assaulted her. Among the charges were two counts of violating a restraining order, which is also known as a protection order, and burglary. King allegedly committed burglary by unlawfully entering the home with the intent to commit another crime — violating a protection order.

As evidence, the prosecution submitted minute orders from two prior cases that provided summaries of the in-court proceedings. The orders from months before King’s offenses stated that “Defendant (was) advised of charges, possible penalties and mandatory protection order.” The summary also indicated that “Defendant acknowledged” the protection order.

The prosecutor asked District Court Judge Lin Billings Vela to take “judicial notice” of the minute orders, which admit certain facts as evidence without requiring proof.

The defense objected, arguing the cases had been dismissed and sealed, and it was not possible to access them. King’s attorney also argued that judicial notice was a tool for undisputed facts, but the information presented in the court summaries was disputed.

Billings Vela overruled the objection and instructed the jury that they could use the information in the minute orders when deciding if King knew about the protection order and intentionally violated it.

On appeal, King maintained it was improper to introduce the summaries as undisputed evidence of his knowledge. A three-judge Court of Appeals panel agreed.

“Regarding whether ‘the Defendant, Noel King,’ was present for the advisement and acknowledgment of the protection orders, the court strayed past the proper boundaries,” wrote Judge W. Eric Kuhn in a May 7 opinion.

He elaborated that the contents of the court summaries could be disputed. Although it would have been fair game to tell the jury that “an individual named Noel King” was advised about the protection orders, Billings Vela had stated that “the defendant, Noel King,” received the advisement.

“And whether the individual who was advised in those earlier proceedings was actually the same Noel King was subject to reasonable dispute,” wrote Kuhn.

He noted that a person named “Noel King” signed and acknowledged the protection orders. But there was no testimony at trial from anyone who saw King sign the documents.

Jurors “could have inferred from specific details contained in the protection orders — details that included King’s physical appearance, relationship to the victim, and address of the home where the crimes took place — that the signatures didn’t belong to some other person with King’s name,” wrote Kuhn. “But the judicially noticed facts eliminated the need for it to do so.”

The panel ordered a new trial for the burglary and protection order charges.

The case is People v. King.