A Colorado Court of Appeals panel has ordered a new trial on the attempted murder charges against Efren Anthony Martinez, ruling that jurors were told to apply a lower standard of intent than the law requires for attempted first-degree murder. Martinez was convicted after prosecutors said he struck and seriously injured two people with a hatchet following a June 2020 protest near Denver’s Civic Center Park. He received an 88-year prison sentence. The appellate ruling, issued Oct. 8, leaves his assault convictions untouched but reverses the attempted first-degree murder convictions. To convict Martinez of attempted first-degree murder, jurors needed to find that he acted after deliberation and with the intent to cause death. But Denver District Court Judge Eric M. Johnson also instructed them that they could convict if Martinez knowingly took a substantial step toward committing murder. Jurors flagged the mismatch during deliberations, asking about attempted second- and third-degree murder and how to reconcile “with intent” and “knowingly.” The judge declined to give instructions on additional offenses and repeated that the jury could convict if Martinez knowingly took a substantial step toward first-degree murder. Neither side objected at trial. The three-judge appeals panel concluded that the instruction was plainly wrong. In the opinion, Judge Craig R. Welling wrote that “knowingly is a lesser culpable mental state than with intent,” meaning the jury had applied a lower standard than the charge required. The jurors’ questions also showed they were confused about which mental state to use, the panel said. Martinez’s appeal argued that a new trial was required. The Colorado Attorney General’s Office agreed that the instruction was incorrect, but argued that the jury’s finding could support convictions for attempted second-degree murder, leaving prosecutors the choice to accept those convictions or seek a retrial. The appeals panel rejected that request. Neither party had asked the trial judge to instruct jurors on attempted second-degree murder, and the panel said Martinez could have raised a “heat of passion” defense to that lesser charge—an option jurors were not given under the instructions used at trial. The panel ordered a new trial on the attempted murder charges without allowing the state to substitute second-degree convictions. The case is People v. Martinez. The ruling was unanimous; Judges W. Eric Kuhn and Melissa C. Meirink joined Welling’s opinion.