A charge of second-degree kidnapping against a Louisiana man accused of snatching his own 15-month-old daughter in Mancos last May was dismissed Wednesday for the second time.

According to police reports, on May 21, 2000, John B. Coleman of New Orleans attacked his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Davis, as she was walking down some steps at the Mancos High School graduation. He then allegedly grabbed their daughter, Aniston, and fled the area.

Two weeks later Coleman turned himself in to authorities in Durango after leaving the baby in Louisiana with his mother.

Original charges brought by then-District Attorney Mike Green included third-degree assault with a domestic-violence sentence-enhancer, child abuse and second-degree kidnapping for forcibly removing the child from the arms of her mother, said current DA Joe Olt.

Since last summer, though, the kidnapping charge was dismissed, reinstated on appeal and again dismissed — this time permanently.

During a preliminary hearing in July, the kidnapping charge was dismissed by County Court Judge Christopher Leroi on the grounds that existing case law in People vs. Armendariz stated that in cases where there is no court-ordered custody to one parent or the other, both parents have an equal right to the child and therefore taking the child is not considered kidnapping.

In Armendariz, a man under a restraining order for domestic violence broke into the home of his child’s mother, severely beat her, and took the child. The courts ruled that it was not kidnapping because there was no custody order, Leroi said.

Davis did not have a custody order preventing Coleman from taking his daughter.

Green said Thursday he felt that Armendariz was significantly different than the Coleman case and that it was also "bad law."

"I felt like it was kidnapping and when I looked at the case I didn’t feel or say or hear anything to change my opinion," Green said. "I felt we had different factual information that distinguished the case and made it non-applicable. It was a crime and I don’t think parents should be able to do that."

Green added that the only way to challenge law is to make a "good-faith" effort with a new case and he felt the Coleman case fit the bill.

"The case (Armendariz) was from 1985," Green said. "It’s old and I don’t think it’s appropriate any more. It’s from back when men were men and women were women. Now everybody’s equal."

Olt said Leroi cut short the preliminary hearing because he believed that Armendariz took precedence and dismissed the charges. But that decision was overturned Jan. 11 by Senior District Judge Joyce S. Steinhardt in Denver following a referral of the case by 22nd Judicial District Judge Sharon Hansen.

Green’s office appealed Leroi’s ruling successfully, arguing that as a judge in a preliminary hearing, Leroi was not supposed to make decisions on legal issues surrounding the charge, only to review whether there was sufficient evidence to bind the case over to district court.

"The preliminary hearing is a screening mechanism supposedly screening out the cases that there’s not sufficient evidence for," Olt noted.

"Basically the appellate court said the Armendariz case might prevent this from going to trial. . . but I’d overstepped my bounds with the argument at a preliminary hearing because I’m only supposed to look at probable cause," Leroi told the Journal. "I don’t necessarily agree with the appellate decision on that one, but that was their reasoning behind that."

With the charge reinstated, the option to pursue the charges was again a possibility.

"Now, as DA, I have the right to prosecute the kidnapping and the other two charges in district court," Olt said. "But when I look at this, I see his legal reasoning and I see we don’t have a good-faith basis of doing it. We don’t feel it is within our ethical boundaries to try in this matter."

Coleman’s defense attorney, Kyle Ipson, praised Olt’s decision.

"The problem is, it wasn’t a valid charge," Ipson said. "When the prior administration made the charge, I do not believe that they had the right to make that charge. I think they were stretching it."

Olt said that if there had been a verbal custody agreement, he would have pursued the charge.

He said he did not like the case law stemming from Armendariz but that he didn’t have any grounds to challenge it.