People v. Manzanares

The summaries of the Colorado Court of Appeals published opinions
constitute no part of the opinion of the division but have been prepared by
the division for the convenience of the reader. The summaries may not be
cited or relied upon as they are not the official language of the division.
Any discrepancy between the language in the summary and in the opinion
should be resolved in favor of the language in the opinion.

SUMMARY
July 3, 2025

2025COA62

No. 22CA1024, People v. Manzanares — Criminal Law —
Mandatory Protection Order; Constitutional Law — Right of
Familial Association

A division of the court of appeals considers a criminal

defendant’s challenge to a trial court’s order denying his motion to

modify a mandatory protection order (MPO) entered against him

and naming his biological children as protected parties. The MPO

the defendant sought to modify prohibited him from having any

contact whatsoever with his children.

On appeal, the defendant contends that the trial court erred

by denying his motion to modify without making the necessary

findings to justify the MPO’s infringement on his constitutional

right to familial association. Relying on Salah v. People, 2024 CO

54, the People respond that the trial court wasn’t required to make
such findings because the defendant failed to produce any evidence

that he had a substantial relationship with his children.

The division reverses the trial court’s order and remands the

case for further findings. In reaching its conclusion that further

findings are required, the division rejects the People’s contention

that a legal parent with intact parental rights is required to first

make an affirmative showing that they have a substantial

relationship with their children before asserting their constitutional

right to familial association.
COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS 2025COA62

Court of Appeals No. 22CA1024
Jefferson County District Court No. 14CR1955
Honorable Robert Lochary, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

Donald Joseph Manzanares, Jr.,

Defendant-Appellant.

ORDER REVERSED AND CASE
REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS

Division VI
Opinion by JUDGE WELLING
Kuhn and Schutz, JJ., concur

Announced July 3, 2025

Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Katharine Gillespie, Senior Assistant
Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee

Megan A. Ring, Colorado State Public Defender, Leah Scaduto, Deputy State
Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant
¶1 Defendant, Donald Joseph Manzanares, Jr., appeals the trial

court’s order denying his motion to modify a mandatory protection

order (MPO) entered against him and naming his children as

protected parties. The MPO prohibited him from having any contact

whatsoever with his children. Manzanares contends that the trial

court erred by denying his motion to modify without making the

findings necessary to justify infringing on his constitutional right to

familial association. Relying on Salah v. People, 2024 CO 54, the

People counter that the trial court wasn’t required to make such

findings because Manzanares failed to produce evidence that he

had a substantial relationship with his children.

¶2 We agree with Manzanares and reject the People’s contention

that Manzanares, as a legal parent with intact parental rights, was

required to make an affirmative showing that he had a substantial

relationship with his children before he could invoke his

constitutional right of familial association. Accordingly, we reverse

the order denying Manzanares’s motion to modify and remand the

case to the trial court for further findings.

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I. Background

A. Events Leading to the Entry of the MPO

¶3 In 2014, Manzanares was arrested for domestic violence

against S.M., the mother of his two children, D.M. and A.M. S.M.

reported that she was driving Manzanares and their children, and,

when she pulled the car over, Manzanares “reached over and

choked [her]” and threatened to kill her. S.M. drove to her

stepfather’s home. She also reported that, a while later,

Manzanares entered the home without her consent, began yelling at

her, poked her hard in the chest, “grabbed [her] face[,] took [her]

down to the ground,” and “put his hand around [her] neck again.”

According to S.M., D.M. and A.M. witnessed the incident in the car,

and A.M. witnessed the incident at S.M.’s stepfather’s home.

¶4 Manzanares was arrested and charged with one count of first

degree burglary; one count of second degree burglary; two counts of

assault in the second degree; two counts of menacing with a deadly

weapon; two counts of child abuse (one count listed D.M. as the

victim, and the other count listed A.M. as the victim); and one count

of violation of a protection order. (Throughout the remainder of this

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opinion, we refer to this criminal case as the domestic violence

case.)

¶5 In September 2014, the trial court entered the MPO against

Manzanares, listing S.M., D.M., and A.M as “victims.” In the MPO,

the court ordered Manzanares to “refrain from contacting or directly

or indirectly communicating with the victim(s)” (the no-contact

provision). The MPO is set to expire on September 11, 2025.

¶6 In 2015, the domestic violence case went to trial. The jury

acquitted Manzanares of first degree burglary, second degree

burglary, one count of assault in the second degree, and one count

of child abuse concerning D.M. But the jury found him guilty of the

lesser included offense of second degree criminal trespass, one

count of assault in the second degree, felony menacing,

misdemeanor menacing, one count of child abuse concerning A.M.,

and violation of a protection order. The trial court sentenced

Manzanares to eleven years in the custody of the Department of

Corrections. A division of this court overturned Manzanares’s

conviction for child abuse concerning A.M., and the People

dismissed the charge on remand. See People v. Manzanares, (Colo.

3
App. No. 15CA1497, Nov. 14, 2019) (not published pursuant to

C.A.R. 35(e)).

B. Efforts to Modify the MPO

¶7 Manzanares sought to modify the MPO as it pertains to D.M.

and A.M. on three occasions. His first attempt was in July 2017,

when he filed a pro se motion requesting court-ordered visitation

with his children. The trial court denied the motion. In January

2022, Manzanares filed another pro se motion to modify the MPO.

This time, Manzanares requested permission to “open a line of

communication” with his children. The trial court construed this

motion as a Crim. P. 35(b) motion and denied it as untimely filed.

¶8 Finally, in April 2022, Manzanares’s attorney filed a third

motion to modify the MPO, which was later amended. In the

amended motion, counsel argued that modification would balance

“[Manzanares’s] fundamental right to have contact with his own

family and children” with “the State’s interest in protecting society.”

The People objected to the motion to modify the MPO, citing the

“egregious facts” of the domestic violence case. The People noted

that S.M. objected to modification, and in victim impact statements

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filed in 2015, neither D.M. nor A.M. indicated that they wanted

contact with Manzanares.

¶9 The trial court denied Manzanares’s third motion to modify. In

the order denying that motion, the trial court made the following

findings:

• “[Manzanares] choked [the children’s mother] while she

was driving with [the children] in the car, threatening to

kill her. He later entered her residence and assaulted her

again. [The children] witnessed all of this.”

• While awaiting trial in the domestic violence case,

Manzanares allegedly “contacted other inmates and

asked them to murder [the children’s mother,] so she

would not be able to testify in the [domestic violence]

case.”

• S.M. objected to modifying the MPO to allow Manzanares

“to contact the children while they remain minors.”

• The requested modification to allow for contact caused

the court “serious concerns regarding [the children’s and

S.M.’s] mental, emotional, and physical safety.”

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¶ 10 In its order denying the motion, the trial court failed to make

findings about Manzanares’s right to familial association with D.M.

and A.M. Manzanares appeals the denial of his April 2022

amended motion to modify the MPO.

II. Analysis

¶ 11 Manzanares contends that because the MPO prohibits him

from having contact with his children, it violates his constitutional

right to familial association. According to Manzanares, the trial

court erred by denying his motion to modify the MPO without

making the findings necessary to justify the deprivation of this

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right. We agree with Manzanares that the trial court erred by

failing to make the required findings.1

¶ 12 In analyzing Manzanares’s contention, we first address the

People’s argument that Manzanares’s right to familial association

wasn’t implicated. We then address the findings the trial court was

required to make and the proper remedy based on our conclusion

that the findings were deficient.

1 Although the parties don’t mention it in their briefing to this court,

according to the record, A.M. was born in June 2006, making him a
minor at the time the court considered Manzanares’s motion to
modify the MPO, but he is now over eighteen. Because A.M. was a
minor at the time that the court entered the order on appeal, the
fact that A.M. subsequently reached the age of majority doesn’t
affect our review of the propriety of the court’s order as to him. His
intervening emancipation may, however, be relevant on remand.
Compare Trujillo v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, 768 F.2d 1186, 1188-89
(10th Cir. 1985) (holding that a parent has a constitutionally
protected interest in their relationship with their adult son), with
Robertson v. Hecksel, 420 F.3d 1254, 1258-60 (11th Cir. 2005)
(collecting cases holding that a parent has no constitutionally
protected interest in their relationship with their adult son). But
because the parties didn’t raise, much less brief, this issue, we offer
no opinion on it. See Galvan v. People, 2020 CO 82, ¶¶ 44-46
(holding that it was error for the division of the court of appeals to
reach and resolve an issue that the parties neither raised nor
briefed). Instead, the trial court must consider this issue in the first
instance on remand.

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A. Right to Familial Association

¶ 13 The People contend that because Manzanares failed to

establish a right to familial association with his children, the trial

court didn’t err by denying his motion to modify the MPO. We

aren’t persuaded.

¶ 14 The People cite our supreme court’s recent opinion in Salah to

support their contention that Manzanares’s right to familial

association wasn’t implicated because he didn’t produce any

evidence that he had a substantial relationship with his children.

¶ 15 In Salah, the defendant contended that a condition of his

probation violated his right to familial association with his minor

nephew. Salah, ¶¶ 1-2. The supreme court held that whether a

probation condition restricting “contact with an extended family

member implicates a probationer’s right to familial association

depends, as a threshold matter, on whether the probationer

presents evidence demonstrating the nature of their relationship

with that family member.” Id. at ¶ 41 (emphasis added). The

People contend that, like the defendant in Salah, Manzanares had

an obligation to establish the nature of his relationship with his

8
children as a condition precedent to invoking his right to familial

association. We reject this contention.

¶ 16 As the court recognized in Salah, Manzanares, as a parent,

has a different — and much stronger — presumption of personal

attachment to his own children than to more distant relatives. See

id. at ¶ 22 (“On [the] spectrum of personal attachments, the parent-

child relationship is afforded the greatest constitutional

protection.”) (citing Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 66 (2000)).

Notwithstanding Manzanares’s reprehensible criminal conduct

toward the children’s mother — some of which the children

witnessed — his parental rights remain intact, and he hasn’t been

adjudicated as unfit. The People don’t contend otherwise.

¶ 17 We recognize that the right to familial association isn’t

absolute, even for biological parents. See id. at ¶ 45 (first citing

Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 499 (1977); and then

citing Chambers v. Sanders, 63 F.4th 1092, 1097 (6th Cir. 2023)).

But we can’t say that Manzanares was required to affirmatively

demonstrate a substantial relationship with his own children when

his right to familial association was never questioned in the first

place.

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¶ 18 Accordingly, we reject the People’s contention that

Manzanares’s right to familial association wasn’t implicated due to

his alleged failure to produce evidence that he had a substantial

relationship with his children.

B. Whether the Protection Order Infringes on Manzanares’s
Constitutional Rights

¶ 19 We now turn to the merits of Manzanares’s claim.

Manzanares contends that the no-contact provision in the MPO

violates his constitutional right to familial association. We agree

with Manzanares that the trial court failed to make the necessary

factual findings to resolve his constitutional claim. More

specifically, the trial court failed to make factual findings about how

the MPO affected Manzanares’s right to familial association,

whether it improperly deprived him of this right, and whether there

was a less drastic alternative to the MPO that would protect the

children’s best interests while allowing Manzanares some contact

with his children.

1. Standard of Review and General Legal Principles

¶ 20 Whether a trial court properly denied a defendant’s motion to

modify an MPO generally presents a mixed question of law and fact.

10
People v. Zoller, 2023 COA 117, ¶ 14. We review de novo whether

the trial court’s order is constitutional but defer to the trial court’s

findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous. Id.

¶ 21 A trial court is required to enter an MPO against any person

charged with a crime in violation of title 18 of the Colorado Revised

Statutes. See § 18-1-1001(1), C.R.S. 2024. The MPO will remain in

effect “until final disposition of the action.” Id. “‘Until final

disposition of the action’ means until the case is dismissed, until

the defendant is acquitted, until the defendant completes the

defendant’s sentence, or until the defendant’s commitment is

terminated.” § 18-1-1001(8)(b).

¶ 22 The terms of the MPO depend on the nature of the underlying

offense. If a case involves domestic violence, the court may enter a

protection order requiring the defendant to “refrain from contact or

direct or indirect communication with [any] alleged victim or

witness.” § 18-1-1001(3)(a)(II). But according to section 18-1-

1001(3)(a), the “trial court retains jurisdiction to enforce, modify, or

dismiss the protection order until final disposition of the action.”

And the defendant “may request a hearing before the court to

modify the terms of [the] protection order.” § 18-1-1001(6).

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¶ 23 When an MPO with a no-contact provision infringes on the

defendant’s right to familial association (as it does here), the

provision survives a constitutional challenge if the trial court makes

specific findings that (1) the provision “is justified by compelling

circumstances” and (2) “the purpose of the order cannot be

accomplished by less restrictive means.” Zoller, ¶ 20.

2. The Trial Court Failed to Make Adequate Findings

a. Compelling Circumstances

¶ 24 We first address the trial court’s findings on whether

compelling circumstances justified the restriction on Manzanares’s

right to familial association. From the record, we can’t discern that

the trial court made any explicit findings on whether compelling

circumstances justified the MPO’s restriction of Manzanares’s

rights. But the trial court did make the following findings that

could support a conclusion that compelling circumstances justified

imposing some degree of limitation on, if not a complete prohibition

of, Manzanares’s right to familial association with his children:

• D.M. and A.M. witnessed the acts of domestic violence

underlying the domestic violence case.

12
• While awaiting trial, Manzanares allegedly solicited other

inmates to “murder” the children’s mother so that she

wouldn’t be able to testify in the domestic violence case

(though Manzanares was not convicted on that charge).

• S.M. objected to modification of the MPO.

• There were “serious concerns regarding the [the

children’s] mental, emotional, and physical safety [related

to] allow[ing] [Manzanares] to contact them.”

¶ 25 These findings — particularly in combination — are certainly

relevant to whether compelling circumstances warrant prohibiting

or limiting Manzanares’s right to familial association with his

children. But there may be other considerations relevant to this

analysis that the trial court has not yet considered because the

court wasn’t focused on the existence of compelling circumstances.

Because of the lack of complete findings and the trial court didn’t

directly consider this issue, we can’t determine on this record

whether compelling circumstances then existed or currently exist

that warrant the imposition of conditions prohibiting or limiting

Manzanares’s right to familial association with the children. That is

13
a question the trial court must consider and determine in the first

instance.

b. Less Restrictive Alternatives

¶ 26 Compelling circumstances alone aren’t enough to justify a

no-contact provision in an MPO when it infringes on a defendant’s

right to familial association. See Zoller, ¶¶ 20, 27. The trial court

must also find that “the purpose of the order cannot be

accomplished by less restrictive means.” Id. at ¶ 20.

¶ 27 In his April 2022 amended motion to modify the MPO,

Manzanares didn’t explicitly state any available less restrictive

means that would still accomplish the purpose of the MPO. But in

his January 2022 motion to modify, Manzanares proposed

alternatives, such as permitting him to send letters to the children

through “a Court Appointed Counselor.” Notwithstanding the

reference to Manzanares’s constitutional right to familial

association in his April 2022 amended motion or his proposals of

less restrictive means of communication in the January 2022

motion, the trial court didn’t make any findings on whether less

restrictive means, other than a no-contact provision, were available

to accomplish the purpose of the MPO. Again, because of the

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absence of findings, we can’t determine whether there may be

alternatives less drastic than a complete prohibition on any contact

that would address whatever compelling circumstances still exist to

justify limitations of Manzanares’s right to familial association with

his children.

3. Remedy

¶ 28 Manzanares and the People disagree as to the appropriate

remedy. Manzanares contends that because the trial court failed to

make adequate findings, we should instruct the trial court to

remove D.M. and A.M. as protected parties on the MPO or,

alternatively, preclude the court from maintaining the full no-

contact provision. The People, on the other hand, contend that the

appropriate remedy is to remand to the trial court with instructions

to make further findings. We agree with the People.

¶ 29 Manzanares’s right to familial association was violated

because the trial court declined to modify the MPO without making

adequate findings about whether compelling circumstances justify a

prohibition or restriction of Manzanares’s contact with his children

and whether there was a less restrictive alterative to the no-contact

provision in the MPO. The trial court must address this violation by

15
making further findings to determine whether compelling

circumstances currently exist and whether less drastic alternatives

are available to protect the children’s best interests while still

permitting Manzanares some contact with them. See Zoller, ¶¶ 20,

27. Only the trial court can make these findings. Thus, we remand

to the trial court for further factual findings on whether compelling

circumstances justify any infringement on Manzanares’s rights

imposed by the no-contact provision in the MPO and whether less

restrictive means than a no-contact provision are available to

accomplish the purpose of the MPO.

III. Disposition

¶ 30 The order is reversed, and the case is remanded to the trial

court. On remand, with respect to Manzanares’s motion to modify

the protection order as to D.M., the trial court must make express

factual findings as to whether (1) existing compelling circumstances

justify continuing the no-contact provision in the MPO, and (2) the

purpose of the MPO may be accomplished by less restrictive means.

¶ 31 As the motion pertains to A.M., the trial court must consider

that A.M. turned eighteen since its prior order and determine

whether (and if so, how) this fact impacts the findings that the court

16
is required to make, including whether it must make findings under

Zoller to justify the no-contact provision in the MPO as to him. See

supra, ¶ 11 n.1. Because the parties didn’t raise or address on

appeal the implication of A.M. reaching the age of majority, we offer

no opinion on how this fact will impact the proceedings on remand.

See Galvan v. People, 2020 CO 82, ¶ 45 (“Under our adversarial

system of justice, we adhere to the party presentation principle,

which relies on the parties to frame the issues to be decided and

assigns to courts the role of neutral arbiters of the matters raised.”).

JUDGE KUHN and JUDGE SCHUTZ concur.

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