RENO COUNTY— A Kansas man sentenced to over 18 years in prison in a kidnapping case won a minor battle on Friday in the Court of Appeals.

Todd Lloyd, 32, Hutchinson, was ordered to prison for violating his probation after he was charged in a kidnapping case.

He appealed contending the court erred in relying upon a probable cause finding made at his preliminary hearing.

He was ordered to serve the two-year, eight-month sentence.

The appeals court in their opinion issued Friday stated that the stand of proof required to bind a defendant over for trial is a lesser burden of proof then the preponderance of evidence standard needed to establish a probation violation.

They said that Judge Trish Rose erred and ordered the case back to District Court for a new probation violation with instructions for the court to apply the correct burden of proof.

However, Lloyd had stipulated to violating his probation when Judge Rose made her decision.

Lloyd had entered a plea in this case from 2012 to aggravated battery and misdemeanor theft.

Despite having a substantial criminal history, he was granted two years probation on the underlying sentence of two years and eight months.

The state says he violated his probation by being arrested on April 23, 2014 when he came close to being shot by two Hutchinson Police officers during an altercation where he held his girlfriend at knifepoint.

District Attorney Keith Schroeder said that had Judge Joe McCarvile handled the probation violation at the end of the preliminary hearing he could have found there was a preponderance of evidence for the probation violation.

Schroeder says he argued at the time of the appeal, that Lloyd had been convicted in the kidnapping case.

So when the case comes back, the judge will now be able to rule using what the Court of Appeals instructed her to do.