Three days after hearing arguments in a criminal case out of Jefferson County, the Colorado Supreme Court took the unusual step of dismissing the appeal and letting stand a lower court’s decision governing police officers’ warrantless entries into homes.

Multiple justices last week observed there were significant defects in the appeal of Adrienne Marie Stone’s criminal convictions, including a contradictory narrative of the police’s investigation and an improperly framed legal question. Some members of the court appeared willing to jettison the case after arguments, even though the prosecution and the defense both urged them to issue an opinion.

On Friday, the Supreme Court issued a single-sentence order rejecting the appeal. The effect is to leave in place the Court of Appeals’ decision that permits officers to gain the consent of a home occupant, enter without a warrant and reenter later without obtaining consent a second time.

In Stone’s case, Arvada police Sgt. Betsy Westbrook arrived at Stone’s house following a report that Stone threatened her teenage son with a knife. Stone was not present when Westbrook arrived, but the son invited her inside to talk.

Westbrook saw the knife, took pictures with her cellphone and also observed the cluttered and hazardous interior of the home. She then left to retrieve her police camera.

When Westbrook walked outside, Stone arrived home and was furious. It was unclear how long Westbrook spent outside the house or who reentered with her, but Westbrook and several other officers and government workers subsequently streamed in and out of Stone’s house to document the unsafe living conditions. They did not obtain a search warrant for their activities.

A trial judge decided Westbrook’s initial entry and second entry were lawful because Westbrook’s son provided his consent, but evidence from the other officials’ entrances was collected largely in violation of the Fourth Amendment. A jury convicted Stone of menacing and child abuse.

The Court of Appeals reviewed Stone’s case and rejected the idea that the consent Westbrook obtained initially did not extend to her reentry. Police officers can lawfully go back into a house, but “the entry and re-entry must be closely related in time and purpose,” wrote Judge Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov.

At the Supreme Court, Stone argued Westbrook should not have been allowed to enter a home for one purpose — to investigate menacing — then come back later without obtaining consent to launch a different investigation — child neglect. However, Stone’s appeal threw up several red flags for the justices. Problematically, Westbrook’s testimony about her second entry was inconsistent and did not paint a clear picture of what actually happened that day.

“Her testimony was all over the place and the trial court tried desperately to figure out what the chronology was,” said Justice Richard L. Gabriel, the most vocal advocate for rejecting the appeal. “This case is a factual mess.”

Gabriel also raised a second concern: Stone’s original attorney proposed — and the Supreme Court initially agreed — to answer whether consent for entering a home extends to a reentry when that reentry is “for a different purpose.” However, neither the Court of Appeals nor the trial judge concluded Westbrook changed the focus of her investigation between entrances from menacing to child neglect.

Despite the justices’ apparent willingness to dismiss the appeal and uphold Stone’s convictions, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office believed the court should issue an opinion to clarify the ability of law enforcement to conduct warrantless home searches.

“It is a novel issue in Colorado whether a single grant of consent can authorize more than one entry,” said attorney Daniel R. Magalotti.

Even while expressing concerns that the underlying case was too muddled for the Supreme Court to decide, Gabriel acknowledged the prosecution was largely responsible for the confusion.

“The record is really jumbled because the prosecutors’ witnesses either didn’t remember the facts or whatever else,” he said. “Ms. Stone didn’t create this problem.”

Stone’s attorney declined to comment. A spokesperson for the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office, which initially prosecuted Stone, did not anticipate the dismissal to impact existing law.

At the time the Court of Appeals issued its decision in Stone’s case, Ian Farrell, an associate professor of criminal law at the University of Denver, said the broader issue for consent-based searches involves the pressure to say yes to a police officer, even when they lack a warrant.

“Often what people think is if they say no, they look guilty. I do presentations to primarily high schoolers, and that’s what most of them think,” he said.