Make My Day BS

[Big E3]

I’m concerned that because it was in a detached garage that MMD may not apply. It looks like potentially if the door is open and a perp doesn’t have to break in to attack me somehow I don’t have a MMD defense. If I was in my garage on my property and was attacked, I would hope I have the law on my side as it pertains to self-defense.

I have seen a scenario of a perp coming at a person and at the moment the perp sees his victim raise a gun, turns instinctively to avoid the bullet thereby getting shot in the back. Therefore, being shot in the back does not exonerate the perp or necessarily mean he was leaving the scene.

[jerrymrc]

It's not that it wouldn't, it's just an area where you start to get closer to "interpretation". In some cases it still would unarguably. This circumstance sounded like he warned and immediately shot. But say a bunch of bangers roll up to your garage, doors open, as your under a car working on it, they walk in and say, "Hey home-slice, how about you give us your wallet or I'm going to kick this jack out" you shoot them in the ankle and the nuts from under the vehicle, that would be an easier MMD application. Though doors are open, they knew it was an illegal entry (trespass). You also have a reasonable belief of bodily injury, no matter how slight (vehicle landing on you is actually serious bodily injury).

The issue here with Mr. Druggy is they are going to argue he thought he was a block from his house and didn't know where he was (accidental). Already looks like they are pushing that direction in the article. Even though Mr. Druggy was most likely looking for shit to support his habit (door open or close).

That make sense?

Something more to chew on. They say he used to own a house close by. The defendant had just purchased the house he lived in. Whats to say that when the druggie came looking for stuff to steal that the previous owner had a lot of nice things in the garage and said druggie had no idea that the place had been sold and the new owner had firearms and was not the old lady schoolteacher he remembered living there.

[Bailey Guns]

The only remaining burden is reasonable belief of harm no matter how slight.

You keep saying "harm" or "injury". There's no such requirement in the statute. It's a reasonable belief the intruder might use any degree of force, no matter how slight, against any occupant of the dwelling. A potential use of force does not equal harm. The word "might" in this statute is very significant. If you can articulate why you thought an intruder might use force against someone in the dwelling that's all that's needed for that element of the statute.

Also, there have been some pretty far-ranging interpretations of this statute by DAs and juries.

[spqrzilla]

As an aside, I'm confident everyone here knows that the Gazette piece completely misstates self defense law in Colorado.

[Aloha_Shooter]

As an aside, I'm confident everyone here knows that the Gazette piece completely misstates self defense law in Colorado.

The Gazette died when it became the Denver Post-lite.