Colorado law also recognizes a “heat of passion” defense in some circumstances. While this defense strategy can be risky, as it’s essentially an admission of guilt, in serious assault cases such as a 1st-degree assault charge, this defense asserts that you acted under extreme provocation by the alleged victim or when strong feelings and emotions got the best of you, causing you to react in a manner that was beyond your control. This type of defense hinges on the ability to show that any reasonable person would have reacted in a similar manner under the same extreme circumstances.
The Heat of Passion defense is ineffective if there was a cooling-off period between the provocation and the action, during which time the prosecution could argue that a reasonable person would have calmed down enough to think through the consequences of reacting with an attack. When the reaction occurs immediately after intense or intentional provocation it can lessen the seriousness of the charges against you, and in some instances, it’s possible that the state could drop the charges.