Colorado’s second-highest court reversed a Jefferson County defendant’s sexual assault and kidnapping convictions last month after concluding that police relied on an unconstitutionally broad search warrant to obtain evidence from the man’s cell phone.

Jurors convicted Joseph Gabriel Van Eck of abducting multiple women near Colfax Avenue, driving them toward the mountains, and sexually assaulting them. He received a sentence of at least 162 years in prison.

But a three-judge Court of Appeals panel concluded most of his convictions required reversal because the warrant that police relied upon failed to provide probable cause to search Van Eck’s phone for various types of evidence.

“We recognize the particularly brutal nature of the crimes involved here,” wrote Judge Terry Fox in the June 11 opinion, adding that evidence must be obtained in a constitutional manner. “Because that did not happen here, we must reverse.”

After police arrested Van Eck, they drafted a warrant to search his cell phone. The warrant sought “any communication through social media platforms” related to sexual assaults, text messages, call logs, contact lists, and “photo and video files” to identify “interactions with possible victims.” A magistrate authorized the search.

The defense moved to exclude the cell phone evidence from trial, arguing the warrant was too broad and did not establish a connection between the criminal allegations and the listed information. District Court Judge Jason Carrithers determined the warrant was constitutional and permitted prosecutors to use the evidence.

But the Court of Appeals panel reached a different conclusion.

For the portion of the warrant seeking “any communication through social media platforms,” Fox noted there was no suggestion that Van Eck used social media to commit the charged crimes. Instead, he met them in person.

“Overall, the affidavit lacked evidence that Van Eck used social media to communicate with victims, about victims, or about his sexual activity,” she wrote.

Second, the panel believed the authorization to search all text messages, call logs, and contact lists was problematic because there was no limitation on the scope.

Finally, despite the warrant’s authorization for a search of “photo and video files,” there was no indication that investigators knew whether Van Eck took photos or videos during the assaults. Instead, the author of the warrant application wrote that it is “not uncommon for serial criminals to document their activities and crimes with their phone through the use of photos and videos, which are commonly shared through text messages.”

“The reference to ‘serial criminals’ could just as accurately have been replaced with ‘most people who own cell phones,'” wrote Fox. “We conclude that broad, generalized assertions about how criminals use their phones — even when based on an officer’s purported training and experience — are generally insufficient to provide probable cause.”

Although the appellate panel found multiple sections of the warrant problematic, it did not believe that all of the recovered evidence necessarily merited exclusion. For example, a photo suggesting Van Eck had robbed one of the victims did not likely affect his convictions, Fox wrote, because Van Eck had “effectively admitted to theft” when he testified.

However, the panel decided that videos Van Eck took while he assaulted two of the victims could not be used against him. Further, because police had identified one of the victims only after searching Van Eck’s videos, all subsequent evidence about her was improper, including her testimony at trial.

“At sentencing, the court said, “(M)y imagination couldn’t have equaled the horror that I saw on those videos,'” Fox wrote, describing the video of Van Eck’s rape of a 19-year-old victim as “harrowing.”

“Given the videos’ graphic nature and the clear implication that the women did not consent,” she continued, “there is a reasonable possibility that they may have contributed to Van Eck’s sexual assault and sexual contact convictions for all four victims.”

The panel ordered a new trial for seven of Van Eck’s convictions, while letting the remaining convictions stand.

The case is People v. Van Eck.