- Joined
- Jun 27, 2019
- Messages
- 15,945
- Reaction score
- 201,202
I am not an attorney but I found this.
The Colorado "Felony Murder Rule" - How Does It Work?
3. Are there defenses to Colorado’s felony murder rule?
As mentioned, felony murder is unlike other murder cases because — as above-mentioned — it does not include the element of intent to commit murder or to cause the death of another person. Lacking this element of intent, defenses like self-defense do not work in felony murder cases.
Intention
Intention, or mental state, is a key difference. For most murders, the person kills someone with an intent to cause death to that person. This intention is premeditated, deliberated, and with malice aforethought. Under the felony murder rule, the person’s intent is not to kill someone but to commit a felony.
Likewise, the courts have affirmed the latter for decades. The Colorado courts found in 1974 that in felony murder cases, specific intent to kill another person with malice is not an element of the crime.2 Ten years later, the courts found that a defendant can indeed be convicted of felony murder where mental culpability is for the underlying felony — a general intent crime.3
In other words, participation in a felony is a substitution for the mens rea required in all other murder charges.4 So, if you kill someone during the commission of a felony, it does not matter if you intended to kill that person or did so through reckless or accidental means, it only matters that the person died while you participated in a felony.
5. What must the prosecutor prove to render a conviction of felony murder in Colorado?
There are only two elements a prosecutor must prove for a conviction of felony murder to hold:
- A felony was committed or was attempted; and
- A person not participating in the felony was killed
This is an amazing post and one of the most informative we've had on WS, of late.
I hope people who are wondering about why "all the 'extra' charges" take a look at what you wrote. Committed or attempted. Doesn't have to be complete.