Colorado’s second-highest court concluded last month that a judge’s error in allowing a juvenile defendant to be prosecuted as an adult cannot be corrected on appeal because the defendant later pleaded guilty.
The case arose under unusual circumstances, after police connected James Edward Papol in 2018 to the 30-year-old unsolved murder of Mary Lynne Vialpando in Colorado Springs. Papol was arrested in his mid-40s, but committed the crime when he was 15.
A judge in El Paso County relied on the 1988 version of state law to conclude that it was appropriate to prosecute Papol as an adult rather than a juvenile. He then pleaded guilty and received a 60-year prison sentence…