Colorado’s second-highest court concluded last week that a Lincoln County prosecutor did not misstate the law to a degree that undermined a jury’s assault verdict against the defendant. During closing arguments in Phillip Archuleta’s 2023 trial, the prosecutor suggested to jurors that Archuleta did not have to make contact with a corrections officer during a scuffle to be found guilty of assault, even though Colorado law requires Archuleta to have “applied physical force.” Archuleta contended on appeal that the mischaracterization amounted to prosecutorial misconduct. By 2-1, a three-judge Court of Appeals panel decided that any misstep by the prosecutor did not cast serious doubt on the outcome of the trial. The panel’s “review of the record reveals overwhelming evidence that Archuleta did apply physical force to (the victim),” wrote Judge Matthew D. Grove in the April 30 opinion.…