In Colorado, six felony crimes can lead to a felony murder charge: burglary, robbery, arson, kidnapping, sexual assault and escape from law enforcement custody, such as prison or jail.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t matter if the defendant intended for someone to die or get hurt. In fact, they don\u2019t have to be present for the killing or even know that it happened to be charged with felony murder.<\/p>\n
Take Lisl Auman\u2019s case: She was handcuffed and sitting in a locked police car after fleeing a burglary when the man she was with fatally shot Denver police Officer Bruce VanderJagt. Auman was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1998, but was released in April 2006 after the felony murder conviction was tossed by the Colorado Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
There are headline-grabbing stories of the statute being used in controversial ways in other U.S. states that opponents of felony murder use as an example of why it\u2019s an unfair punishment wielded by prosecutors in unreasonable ways.<\/p>\n
Ryan Holle was sent to prison for life in Florida after he loaned his car to a friend who used the vehicle to drive three men to a home where they beat to death an 18-year-old woman during a robbery. In Chicago, Tevin Louis was convicted of felony murder, blamed for the shooting death of his friend by a police officer after Louis and his friend committed a series of robberies.<\/p>\n
Tally Zuckerman, who was one of Johnson\u2019s attorneys, said she has worked on multiple felony murder cases and in each the defendant is blindsided by the charge and the life sentence that comes with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever had a felony murder case in however many years I\u2019ve been doing this where a client is like, \u2018Oh, yes, I am aware of felony murder,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cIn a lot of these cases, you end up having confessions from clients who don\u2019t realize they are confessing to felony murder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zuckerman said people who are charged with felony murder are often juveniles or young adults who get tied up with the wrong people. \u201cTeens are more likely to run in groups, to commit crimes in groups or in pairs,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of kids and young adults, this is before they age out of gangs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live in Colorado,\u201d said Tom Raynes, executive director of the Colorado District Attorneys\u2019 Council. \u201cShow me where our law has failed in a given case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brauchler says people can be charged with murder in other ways. \u201cWhat the public doesn\u2019t understand about felony murder is it isn\u2019t dissimilar from complicity theory,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Complicity theory allows prosecutors to charge someone with murder for a killing because they played a part in planning or carrying out the crime. Take, for instance, the STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting in May. Of the two students charged in the attack that killed 18-year-old Kendrick Castillo, only one fired the fatal shots. However, both are charged with first-degree murder with extreme indifference because of the complicity theory.<\/p>\n
Raynes and Brauchler feel that Colorado\u2019s felony murder law applies only to a very specific set of felony crimes where there is a high risk of someone dying. Criminals should know if they are going to commit a robbery, sexual assault or kidnapping, for instance, that someone could die in the process.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors also say it\u2019s a critical tool that allows them to ensure the worst offenders are locked up for as long as possible.<\/p>\n
Other states rethinking felony murder<\/div>\n
Colorado\u2019s forthcoming reexamination of felony murder comes on the heels of efforts in other states to take a second look at their felony murder statutes.<\/p>\n
California, for instance, in 2018 changed its felony murder law to require that a criminal intended for someone to die during the commission of their felony crime to be charged with felony murder. The alteration also opened up old felony murder convictions for review, meaning people sent to prison for life are being released as their cases are reexamined.<\/p>\n
Lee\u2019s proposed change to Colorado\u2019s felony murder law would not be retroactive. Many other parts of his bill are still a work in progress, he says.<\/p>\n
Guyora Binder, a professor at the University at Buffalo school of law who has written a book and several journal articles on felony murder, says the change being proposed by Lee would put Colorado on par with other states.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are other states that have felony murder but grade it as second-degree murder,\u201d he said. \u201cMy own state, New York, grades felony murder as second-degree murder, rather than first. It takes the death penalty off the table in death penalty states. In Colorado, it would take life sentences off the table as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashley Ratliff, a Denver attorney who has worked on many felony murder cases, said taking life in prison without the possibility of parole away as an automatic sentence for felony murder will give judges the ability to penalize people appropriately for their role in a killing. It will also let judges take into account a defendant\u2019s age, family history or intent. \u201cThat provides the court with a range,\u201d she said of Lee\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n
Binder said not all 50 states have felony murder statutes on their books. Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan and Massachusetts are among that group.<\/p>\n
Binder also said the U.S. is an outlier when it comes to the use of felony murder laws globally. Other nations with similar judicial systems, like England, Australia and Canada, have all ceased using such statutes.<\/p>\n
The Colorado General Assembly has weighed whether to change the state\u2019s felony murder law before. In 2017, an effort to make felony murder a second-degree murder offense was swiftly rejected in a bipartisan Senate committee vote.<\/p>\n
But even with signs that the tide may be shifting on the issue, it could still be difficult to pass such a controversial piece of legislation in an election year.<\/p>\n
Former Gov. John Hickenlooper used his clemency powers to cut short the prison sentences of people convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life in prison. That includes his December 2018 decision to release Curtis Brooks, who was 15 when he committed a robbery with a group of other boys and one of them fatally shot 24-year-old Christopher Ramos.<\/p>\n
Gov. Jared Polis late last month, in his first use of his clemency powers, commuted the sentence of a man sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of felony murder.<\/p>\n
Abron Arrington was convicted of felony murder in the 1989 Colorado Springs killing of 30-year-old Kelly Knudson. His three co-defendants were sentenced to shorter prison terms and have all since been released from prison.<\/p>\n
Felony murder reemerged as a top-of-mind issue in recent years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that it is unconstitutional to sentence juvenile offenders to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In Colorado, 48 people were sent away for life for crimes they committed as juveniles.<\/p>\n
Of those, 16 were convicted of felony murder, according to Denver District Attorney Beth McCann, whose jurisdiction prosecuted seven of those cases. McCann opposes felony murder but is among a limited number of district attorneys in Colorado who have the same mindset.<\/p>\n
\u201cI support the effort to revise the felony murder statute this legislative session,\u201d she said in a statement to The Colorado Sun. \u201cHowever, I need to see the language of the proposed bill before committing my support for a particular piece of legislation.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cI lost my life as well\u201d<\/p>\n
Jeff Johnson says for a long time he felt like when his co-defendant, Johnathan Jordan, fatally stabbed John Leonardelli during a botched burglary in that Aurora parking garage more than 20 years ago, Jordan actually killed two people.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe killed the victim in our case as well as me because I was going to die in prison,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Johnson said he had no intention of being a part of any crime the day of the slaying. Behind bars, he turned to drugs and contemplated suicide before turning things around.<\/p>\n
Jordan\u2019s sentence was actually shorter than Johnson\u2019s because Jordan pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and prosecutors dismissed a first-degree murder charge initially leveled against him. Jordan is still locked up, but parole eligible in 2036, according to Colorado Department of Corrections records.<\/p>\n
Johnson was supposed to be imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole, but the 2012 Supreme Court decision changed his fate.<\/p>\n
Now, Johnson, 43, lives in Colorado Springs with his wife, twin infants and two dogs. He speaks often to at-risk kids and visits prisons to speak with inmates. Leonardelli\u2019s slaying still haunts him, and he wishes he had done more that day to stop Jordan.<\/p>\n
As for felony murder, he\u2019d like to see it eliminated altogether, but thinks Lee\u2019s proposal is at least a step in the right direction.\u201cI don\u2019t feel like it\u2019s right that someone can lose their life for something that wasn\u2019t really their intention.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ironically enough, his current job working for a company that makes metal building kits is in Aurora. His office\u2019s parking garage? The same one where Leonardelli was murdered. Johnson has become friends with Leonardelli\u2019s grandson.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always talk about how crazy that is,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWell, God works in crazy ways.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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