A charge of second-degree kidnapping has been reinstated against a Louisiana man accused of kidnapping his own 15-month-old daughter last May during a graduation ceremony at Mancos High School.

The Class 4 felony charge against John B. Coleman of New Orleans had been dismissed by Montezuma County Court Judge Christopher Leroi during a preliminary hearing in July.

On May 21, 2000, Coleman allegedly tackled his former girlfriend, Jennifer Davis, and snatched their child, Aniston Coleman, while Davis was walking down some steps at the Mancos Performance Center, according to police reports.

He then fled with the child and disappeared until June 5, when he turned himself in at the Durango Police Department. Aniston had been left in the care of Coleman’s mother in Louisiana.

At the preliminary hearing, Coleman’s defense attorney, Kyle Ipson, argued that a 1986 ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court precluded the possibility of a kidnapping charge. In the case of a man who broke into his wife’s home and took his own child, the court ruled that he could not be convicted of kidnapping because — unless there are custody orders to the contrary — both parents have an equal right to their child.

According to prior reports, Davis had not obtained a court order giving her custody of the child at the time of the alleged kidnapping.

Leroi then dismissed the kidnapping charge.

But on Jan. 11, Senior District Judge Joyce S. Steinhardt — upon an appeal by former District Attorney Mike Green’s office — remanded the case to the county court to reinstate the felony charge.

Coleman now will be bound over to district court for trial on that charge. He also currently faces misdemeanor charges of assault in the third degree and child abuse, as well as domestic violence, a sentence-enhancer, according to DA Joe Olt.

Jim Preston, who was deputy district attorney at the time of the kidnapping and argued the case at the preliminary hearing, said Friday he was pleased by the decision.

"I think people need to know that the system sometimes works," he said. "It makes mistakes, but it does correct itself."

He said local law-enforcement officers had been "disheartened" by the dismissal of the kidnapping charge. "We were working 24 hours a day on this case" to find the child after Coleman took her, he said.

Steinhardt, who is in Denver, heard the case after it was referred by 22nd Judicial District Judge Sharon Hansen. Decisions in preliminary hearings, which take place in county court, can be appealed to the district court, even by the prosecution.

Green’s office, in appealing, argued that the county court had wrongly relied on the 1986 court case, Armendariz v. The People of the State of Colorado, and that the Coleman case was substantially different because of alleged evidence of prior abuse and threats by Coleman against Davis.

According to sheriff’s department reports, Davis alleged that she had left New Orleans a week before the graduation ceremony to escape abuse from Coleman.

At the preliminary hearing, Leroi had refused to allow hearsay and other evidence involving alleged threats by Coleman. Steinhardt ruled that he was in error to do so and that such evidence could be allowed at a preliminary hearing.

Steinhardt also ruled that the county court had erred in holding the prosecution to a standard of "proof beyond reasonable doubt" concerning the element of "lack of consent" in the kidnapping statute.

At a preliminary hearing, she wrote, "it is unnecessary for the Prosecution to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant committed the crime. . . . Instead, the Trial Court is obligated at a preliminary hearing to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the Prosecution."

Coleman’s defense attorney had charged that Green’s office was acting in "bad faith" when it filed the kidnapping charge and was seeking publicity because Green was facing an upcoming election.