Colorado's second-highest court determined last week that a Weld County magistrate improperly relied on an anonymous tip through the state's Safe2Tell program when she found a juvenile defendant had participated in vandalizing a high school.

Surveillance video captured two people spray painting a school building. Administrators subsequently received a tip identifying one of the suspects through Safe2Tell, a hotline that allows for reporting of potential threats to student or school safety.

The subject of the tip, a teenager identified as C.H., pleaded guilty to his involvement. Another Safe2Tell report pointed to T.B. as the other vandal, but T.B. maintained he was not present.

At a bench trial before a magistrate, T.B.'s parents testified he was home that evening. Although C.H. testified that T.B. was the second vandal, T.B. argued C.H. was falsely implicating him to avoid "snitching" on a gang member.

The unnamed magistrate, whose identity Colorado Politics could not verify because the underlying case is shielded from public view, recognized the Safe2Tell tip about T.B. was hearsay. Therefore, she allowed the out-of-court statement to illustrate the police's investigation, but not to prove T.B.'s involvement with the graffiti.

However, when rendering her decision, the magistrate changed course and used the Safe2Tell tip to decide T.B.'s guilt.

"What this comes down to is which witnesses (the court) is to believe," she said. "What (C.H.) has testified to is supported by the other evidence that I have been presented, specifically the fact that a second Safe2Tell message named a person, (T.B), as the person who was with (C.H.)."

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The magistrate adjudicated T.B. delinquent, which is the juvenile equivalent of a criminal conviction.

A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals overturned that decision, noting the magistrate said she was not admitting the hearsay tip to prove the truth, but wound up doing that anyway.

"First, as the magistrate herself noted, the case turned on the issue of witness credibility," wrote Judge Katharine E. Lum in the Sept. 5 opinion, "and she believed C.H.'s testimony because it was corroborated by the tip. There's no way for the tip to corroborate C.H.'s testimony unless the magistrate used it for the truth of what it asserted."

Because the only other evidence supporting C.H.'s testimony was a Snapchat message C.H. himself had sent to T.B., the appellate panel concluded the magistrate's reliance on the anonymous tip likely affected her decision. It ordered a new trial for T.B.

The case is People in the Interest of T.B.