The Colorado Supreme Court decided on Monday that a San Miguel County jury properly 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.

The court agreed unanimously that the jury instructions for finding Madani Ceus guilty of a felony failed to track Colorado law. However, by 6-1, the majority believed the error did not warrant reversal of Ceus’ convictions because the evidence overwhelmingly established the cause of the two victims’ deaths was their isolation in a vehicle without food or water.

“We are hard-pressed to treat the trial court’s instructional error as reversible when the question (of) whether the confinement in the car resulted in the girls’ deaths was not meaningfully contested at trial,” wrote Justice Carlos A. Samour Jr. in the June 29 opinion.

Justice Richard L. Gabriel dissented, arguing that jurors might have decided Ceus’ actions did not cause the victims’ deaths in light of other evidence suggesting culpability belonged to the children’s mother. Yet, the instruction did not ask the jury to make the connection for Ceus.

“Here, substantial evidence at trial, which the majority largely ignores, raised a legitimate question as to whether Ceus’s alleged abusive conduct (as opposed to that of the victims’ mother, who was convicted of first degree murder in the victims’ deaths) was the cause,” he wrote.

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 and 64-year prison sentence, Ceus contended the trial judge incorrectly instructed the jury about the charges. Child abuse 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?”

Instead, 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 one possible method of child abuse, not for the other methods described in state law. 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.

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

The majority agreed. Samour wrote that the defense did not “meaningfully” dispute at trial whether the victims’ confinement in the car caused their deaths. Instead, the question was whether Ceus was responsible for their life-threatening conditions.

“The girls died after being confined in the car without food or water during the intense summer heat for an extended period. There was no evidence suggesting any other cause of death,” wrote Samour. “Here, the jury found that Ceus was responsible for the girls being confined in the car without food or water during the intense summer heat for an extended period.”

Gabriel argued in dissent that the majority deviated from the court’s precedent and had minimized the need to link Ceus’ conduct with the victims’ deaths. He would have reversed her convictions and allowed Ceus to remain convicted of misdemeanor child abuse or permitted prosecutors to retry her again for a felony.

The court returned the case to the Court of Appeals to resolve Ceus’ other arguments on appeal.

The case is People v. Ceus.