Criminal Law Newsletter
| Publication year | 1981 |
| Pages | 1901 |
| Citation | Vol. 10 No. 8 Pg. 1901 |
1981, August, Pg. 1901. Criminal Law Newsletter
The Fifty-third General Assembly essentially concluded its first session in late May, after it had considered nearly two hundred bills which directly related to the criminal justice system in Colorado. The following are brief descriptions of the changes in statutory law concerning the state's criminal justice system as a result of eighty-one bills which were enacted into law in 1981. These descriptions are intended only to alert the reader to the general nature of the changes which have occurred and are not intended to be complete summaries of these new laws. Only those portions of bills relating to criminal law are herein reviewed. Those bills which are of particular interest to members of the CBA Criminal Law Section are preceded by an asterisk.
*S.B. 389 adds a new article 16 to the Colorado Criminal Code. It requires (1) purchasers of precious or semi-precious metals or stones (as defined) to obtain specified identification information about the seller of such items and to keep a detailed record of the transaction; (2) the purchaser to regularly provide law enforcement officials with copies of such records; (3) such items to be held and made available for inspection by peace officers for thirty days, with certain exceptions; and (4) makes violations of this new article, including the giving of false information, a class 5 felony. Effective date is May 22, 1981.
*H.B. 1156 specifies five "extraordinary aggravating circumstances" in which the court, if it sentences the defendant to incarceration, is required to sentence the defendant to a term greater than the maximum of the presumptive range, but not more than twice that maximum. The following extraordinary aggravating circumstances are recognized by statute: (1) the defendant is convicted of a crime of violence under § 16-11-309; (2) the defendant was on parole for another felony at the time of the current offense; (3) the defendant was on probation for another felony at the time of the current offense; (4) the defendant was charged with or was on bond for a previous felony at the time of the current offense, for which previous felony the defendant was convicted; and (5) the defendant was in confinement or custody in a correctional institution as a convicted felon or was an escapee from a
correctional institution within the state in which he was being held for another felony at the time of the current offense.
The bill also amends § 16-11-309 to require that the mandatory sentence for a "crime of violence" shall be greater, but not more than twice, the maximum of the appropriate presumptive range. Effective date is July 1, 1981.
*S.B. 138 establishes an habitual burglary offender classification which carries a mandatory sentence to incarceration greater than the maximum of the applicable presumptive range, but not more than twice the maximum presumptive sentence. This classification includes any person convicted of first degree burglary, first degree burglary of drugs or second degree burglary of a dwelling who has been once previously convicted of one of these offenses within ten years. The bill specifies that the habitual offender procedures of § 16-13-103 govern this new classification. Effective date is July 1, 1981.
S.B. 304 eliminates the automatic, non-adversary appeal to the Court of Appeals of sentences outside the presumptive range and eliminates the requirement that the findings of the judge on the record on which a sentence outside the presumptive range is based be written. Effective date is July 1, 1981.
S.B. 367 expands the definition of "crime of violence" to include any crime against an elderly (aged sixty or older) or handicapped person in which the defendant used or possessed and threatened the use of a deadly weapon. The bill provides that, upon conviction of a crime of violence against an elderly or handicapped person, the defendant must be sentenced to at least the maximum sentence within the presumptive range for that crime as specified in § 18-1-105. Effective date is July 1, 1981.
S. B. 72 creates the new crime of "theft from the elderly" when the victim of a theft is aged sixty or older and an element of theft is committed in the presence of the victim. Theft from the elderly is a class 1 misdemeanor if the value of the thing taken is less than $200; a class 3 felony if the value is $200 or more. Proof problems will likely limit use of this statute to unusual circumstances which might also be charged under § 18-4-401(5), theft from the person, thereby giving rise to equal protection issues. Effective date is July 1, 1981.
*S.B. 183 makes numerous amendments to the Colorado Criminal Code, as follows: (1) specifies that a sentence to community corrections includes one year of parole; (2) reenacts the definition of "deadly weapon" in a different grammatical format in response to People v. McPherson___Colo___619 P.2d 38 (1980); (3) includes an employee of a district attorney who administers an offender diversion program as a "peace officer" under § 18-1-901; (4) includes a "universal malice" element to paragraph (1)(d) of the first degree murder statute, § 18-3-102; and (5) repeals the "good faith but unreasonable belief variation of criminally negligent homicide, § 18-3-105.
The bill also: (6) revises the "felony assault" law, § 18-3-202(1)(d), to conform to the "felony murder" law such that any participant in committing specified offenses in which serious bodily injury is caused to a non-participant may be charged with first degree assault, regardless of whether the participant directly caused the injury; (7) includes as second degree assault under § 18-3-203 conduct with intent to cause mere bodily injury in which serious bodily injury is caused; (8) includes certain terroristic acts involving use of "chemical or biological agents, weapons, or poison or... radioactive agents" within the criminal extortion statute, § 18-3-207; (9) enhances the penalties for second and third degree burglary when the objective of the burglary is the theft of dangerous or narcotic
drugs ("controlled substance" will be substituted by a Revisor's housekeeping bill to conform to H.B. 1405, below); (10) amends the criminal mischief statute, § 18-4-501, and the fraudulent use of a credit device statute, § 18-5-202, to make the penalties consistent with the theft statute, § 18-4-401; and (11) adds to bombs and explosives, "any chemical or biological agent, any poison or weapon, or any harmful radioactive substance" concerning which false reports are prohibited.
Moreover, the bill (12) permits, without liability, the good faith disclosure by one person or corporation to another information of the possibility that criminal conduct may be attempted against such other person or corporation; (13) makes conducting or promoting dog fighting a class 5 felony; (14) authorizes law enforcement officials to control telephonic communications with a person who has taken hostages; (15) increases the penalties for defacing a firearm and for possession of a defaced firearm and provides for the destruction of defaced firearms as contraband; (16) adds substantially to the list of "high explosives" which are regulated, in part, by the Criminal Code; and (17) establishes as a class 4 felony certain abandonment or spilling of specified hazardous wastes. Effective date is July 1, 1981.
H.B. 1167 standardizes use of the defined terms "bodily injury" and "serious bodily injury" in place of "harm," "physical injury" and other similar variations throughout the Criminal Code. Effective date is May 13, 1981.
S. B. 38 creates the offenses of promotion of obscenity (class 2 misdemeanor) and...
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