Colorado’s second-highest court clarified on Thursday that the length of a couple’s relationship and the labels they attach to it are not conclusive evidence of whether it is an “intimate relationship” that can give rise to a domestic violence prosecution.

In Colorado, domestic violence is not a crime itself, but rather a finding that accompanies criminal charges and triggers the requirement for defendants to receive domestic violence treatment on top of their sentence. Domestic violence applies to those in an intimate relationship, which the Colorado Supreme Court has interpreted to mean “romantic attachment.”

Yasniel Fonseca Jr. argued on appeal that his conviction for assault as an act of domestic violence could not stand because he and the victim were not in an intimate relationship. Specifically, the short length of time that they knew each other and their characterizations of the relationship were evidence that they were not boyfriend and girlfriend at the time of the assault.

A three-judge Court of Appeals panel disagreed that those factors were the only relevant metrics of an intimate relationship.

“No case appears to support the position that parties are in an intimate relationship only if they engage in what might be considered traditional dating activities like going to restaurants or movie theaters,” wrote Judge Elizabeth L. Harris in the Aug. 6 opinion.

There was no dispute that the victim stayed overnight at Fonseca’s house and confronted Fonseca in the morning about receiving notifications from other women on his phone. Both parties testified at trial, with the victim portraying Fonseca as the aggressor who assaulted her and Fonseca maintaining that the victim assaulted him.

Jurors convicted Fonseca of assault as an act of domestic violence.

On appeal, the prosecution and the defense argued whether Fonseca and the victim were in an intimate relationship at the time. The evidence showed that:

• They met over social media and saw each other three or four times over the course of three weeks
• They had sex on the first day they met, but not again
• They hung out and would “usually smoke and watch movies”
• The victim called their relationship one of “talking” and “on the verge of kind of maybe becoming something”
• The night before the assault they fell asleep cuddling
• The victim said Fonseca told her they were “locked in,” but Fonseca denied it

“If ‘intimate relationships’ are expanded to include the non-relationship here,” wrote public defender Daniel J. Sequeira, “it would open the door to inclusion of numerous forms of platonic friendships that the legislature did not intend to capture within the purview of domestic violence.”

“The very basis for the argument on the day of the assault was the victim’s concern that someone was interfering in their romantic relationship,” countered Assistant Attorney General Jaycey DeHoyos. “The law cares not about the title of the relationship, but the nature of the relationship. And here, the two acted as though they were dating.”

The Court of Appeals panel relied on a 2010 Supreme Court decision in which the justices rejected a defendant’s argument that an intimate relationship necessarily had to be sexual. The court indicated that the length and nature of a relationship plus the frequency of interactions were key factors in determining whether the relationship was intimate.

“We disagree with Fonseca that the duration of the relationship (three weeks of in-person contact) and the frequency of interactions (four over three weeks) preclude a finding of an intimate relationship,” wrote Harris.

She acknowledged that the evidence in Fonseca’s case was “not overwhelming,” but jurors could have reasonably found the two were romantically attached at the time of the assault.

“In addition, if the court simply deferred to the parties’ labels for the relationship, the purpose of the domestic violence statute might be undermined,” Harris wrote. “After the fact, the perpetrator could minimize the nature of the relationship, characterizing it as a mere acquaintanceship or friendship. A victim fearing retaliation might do the same. For this reason, whether the parties’ relationship constitutes an intimate relationship for purposes of the statute must turn on objective criteria.”

She added that conceptions of dating and the terminology couples use will change across generations, and a relatively brief relationship does not foreclose the possibility of intimacy.

“Moreover, according to the victim, the parties’ relationship ended after three weeks because of Fonseca’s violence. Under Fonseca’s logic, perpetrators who assault their intimate partners early in the relationship, and thereby end it during its initial stage, would not be subject to the domestic violence statute, no matter how often the cycle repeats itself,” Harris wrote. “We do not think the legislature intended this illogical result.”

The case is People v. Fonseca.