Colorado's Court of Appeals reversed Martinez's attempted first-degree murder convictions over a bad jury instruction.

A reversal for instructional error is not an acquittal. It wipes the attempted first-degree murder convictions and sends those counts back for a new trial. The Denver Gazette and Colorado Politics report the assault convictions stand. Until a new jury is asked, or prosecutors make a different election, the attempted-murder piece of the judgment is undone.

The Denver Gazette and Colorado Politics reported that Colorado's Court of Appeals, in an Oct. 8, 2026 opinion in People v. Martinez, reversed Efren Anthony Martinez's two attempted first-degree murder convictions because the trial judge gave the jury the wrong mental-state instruction. Colorado Politics reported a three-judge panel ordered a new trial on those counts while leaving Martinez's assault convictions untouched. A published appellate reversal is a court decision on the instruction. It is not a finding that the hatchet attack never happened.

Colorado Politics and the Denver Gazette reported prosecutors charged Martinez after he struck and seriously injured two people with a hatchet following a June 2020 protest near Civic Center Park in Denver. Jurors convicted him, and he received an 88-year prison sentence, those outlets reported. On appeal he argued the attempted-murder counts needed a new trial because the instruction was obviously wrong. First-degree murder as charged, the outlets explained, required proof he acted after deliberation and with the intent to cause death. District Court Judge Eric M. Johnson also instructed that convicting him of attempted murder required proof he "knowingly" tried to commit the crime.

During deliberations, the Denver Gazette and Colorado Politics reported, jurors sent Johnson a note asking about "2nd or 3rd degree attempt to commit murder" and showing confusion about "with intent" versus "knowingly." Johnson said he would not instruct on additional offenses and repeated that Martinez would be guilty if the state proved he "knowingly engaged in conduct constituting a substantial step toward the commission of that crime (murder in the first degree)." No one objected then. On appeal, Martinez argued the state had to prove deliberation and intent, not knowingly. Colorado Politics reported the Colorado Attorney General's Office agreed the instruction was wrong, but asked the court to let the district attorney accept attempted second-degree murder convictions or retry.

Judge Craig R. Welling, writing for a unanimous panel with Judges W. Eric Kuhn and Melissa C. Meirink, held that knowingly is a lesser culpable mental state than intent, so the jury applied too low a standard, Colorado Politics and the Denver Gazette reported. The panel also pointed to the jurors' questions as evidence of confusion. It refused to let the state convert the verdicts into attempted second-degree murder because neither side asked for that lesser instruction and because a heat-of-passion mitigator could have applied to that lesser offense. The assault convictions remain. The attempted first-degree murder counts go back for a new trial. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.