Colorado Laws Related To Domestic Violence And Abuse
Colorado Laws Related To Domestic Violence And Abuse© 2002 Equal Justice Foundation
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Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1784
Since the Domestic Violence Against Men in Colorado project began in mid-1999 it has been a basic objective to provide citizens with ready access to the laws defined in the Colorado Revised Statutes (C.R.S.) that govern domestic violence and abuse. Now it shouldn't be any surprise that some are these laws can best be described as "damn stupid." After all, in Logan County you can't kiss a woman while she is asleep (no, we don't have an example of a woman getting a restraining order for that, yet ), you can't drive a black car in Denver on Sundays, and in Pueblo it is illegal to promote dandelion growth. So why should we expect reason and logic to show its face in such an emotionally-driven issue as domestic violence and abuse?
Initially, several attempts were made to establish links to the web sites the Colorado legislature has contracted with to provide the statutes online. However, when the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the designated site was changed four times in less than two years the effort of updating the related links on this site became unsupportable.
Thus, the statutes are now copied to pages on this site and links made internally. That has the disadvantage that the laws as listed here may not match the current laws as time goes on. When using the laws as posted here it behooves you to check with the current Colorado Statute Manager site for the latest revisions.
Colorado classifies crimes basically as felonies (C.R.S. § 18-1-105) or misdemeanors (C.R.S. § 18-1-106) though a few offenses are classified as petty (C.R.S. § 18-1-107).
Felonies are defined in the Colorado Constitution as offenses that are punishable by death or imprisonment in a state penitentiary. Violations of the law that are punishable by fine or imprisonment in a county jail are misdemeanors.
Penalties associated with classes of felony crimes are given in Table 88.
Penalties associated with classes of misdemeanors are given in Table 89.
Limitations for commencing criminal proceedings and juvenile delinquency proceedings in Colorado are generally defined in C.R.S. 16-5-401.
Except in special circumstances, under C.R.S. 16-5-401 no adult or juvenile shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense or delinquent act unless the indictment, information, complaint, or petition in delinquency is filed in a court of competent jurisdiction or a summons and complaint or penalty assessment notice is served upon the defendant or juvenile within the period of time after the commission of the offense or delinquent act as specified below:
Murder, kidnapping, treason, and any forgery regardless of the penalty provided: No limit
Attempt, conspiracy, or solicitation to commit murder; attempt, conspiracy, or solicitation to commit kidnapping; attempt, conspiracy, or solicitation to commit treason; and attempt, conspiracy, or solicitation to commit any forgery regardless of the penalty provided: No limit
Class 1 and 2 misdemeanor traffic offenses: One year
In general the period within which a prosecution must be commenced shall begin to run upon discovery of the criminal or delinquent act.
Colorado is rated better than most other states in terms of the coherency of its statutes. However, that does not imply there isn't a great deal of room for improvements, particularly in the area of domestic violence and abuse. And Colorado law is far from settled and constant from year to year, especially with regard to family law and domestic violence and abuse.
We see no reason the statutes should not be brought into conformance with the State and Federal Constitutions on such issues as warrantless arrests, search and seizure, mandatory arrests, subornation of perjury, use of hearsay, presumption of innocence, right to obtain witnesses on one's behalf, restoration of due process, and a host of other ills that have crept into our laws in the name of "law and order."
Rarely do police actually need such powers as they have been granted. Modern technology gives them many advantages of communication, surveillance, and other technology that readily outweigh any supposed disadvantages of giving citizens back their civil liberties. Such liberties were given Constitutional protection in the first place because centuries of experience showed that governments abused these powers if citizens were not protected. Our perilous times are no exception.
The following sections are a mere beginning on the work that needs to be done. Our resources are limited and our grasp of the issues finite. But someone, somewhere, somehow, must make a start.
In the following sections the existing statute is copied at the top followed by notations and court cites. Following those we have tabulated any changes to the law we think would work toward fixing the problem, not the blame. This is an ongoing effort and is presently (August, 2001) incomplete.
Proposed changes follow the same format:
• Text in ordinary font is language that exists now.
• Text in bold indicates intention of proposed changes.
• Language to be removed is indicated by
striking it out.
• Language to be added is indicated by text in [ non-proportional Courier font] surrounded by square brackets [ ].
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