Opinion ID: 2520543
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Felony-Murder Statute: Four Requirements

Text: On its face, Colorado's felony-murder statute is broad in scope. The words of the statute provide that if a person commits a specifically enumerated felony and an innocent party dies during that felony or during immediate flight from that felony, then that person commits felony murder: A person commits the crime of murder in the first degree if:... [a]cting either alone or with one or more persons, he [or she] commits or attempts to commit ... burglary ... and, in the course of or in furtherance of the crime that he [or she] is committing or attempting to commit, or of immediate flight therefrom, the death of a person, other than one of the participants, is caused by anyone. § 18-3-102(1)(b), 6 C.R.S. (1999). Pursuant to the terms of this statute, it does not matter that the defendant had no intent to kill or that the defendant did not cause the killing. Liability arises from the defendant's participation in, and intent to commit, one of the specifically named, or predicate, felonies. According to the felony-murder doctrine, the intent to kill is imputed from the participant's intent to commit the predicate felony. See Whitman v. People, 161 Colo. 110, 114-15, 420 P.2d 416, 418 (1966) (The turpitude of the felonious act is deemed to supply the element of deliberation or design to effect death.). Our felony-murder statute provides severe penalties for those who participate in specifically enumerated felonies involving a risk of death when death is caused during a felony or in immediate flight from that felony. [6] Under this statute, a defendant who commits a predicate felony may be liable when death occurs during either of two events, namely: (1) in the course of or in furtherance of the crime that [the defendant] is committing or attempting to commit; or, (2) in the course of or in furtherance ... of immediate flight therefrom. [7] § 18-3-102(1)(b). Here, we address only whether the death was caused in the course of or in furtherance of immediate flight from the predicate felony, which in this case was burglary. According to the plain language of the immediate flight provision of the statute, there are four limitations on liability for felony murder when a death occurs during flight from the predicate felony. First, the flight from the predicate felony must be immediate, which requires a close temporal connection between the predicate felony, the flight, and the resulting death. See Webster's New World College Dictionary 713 (4th ed.1999) (defining immediate as without delay or of the present time). Second, the word flight limits felony-murder liability in such cases to those circumstances in which death is caused while a participant is escaping or running away from the predicate felony. Id. at 541 (defining flight as a fleeing from ... to run away). Third, the death must occur either in the course of or in furtherance of immediate flight, so that a defendant commits felony murder only if a death is caused during a participant's immediate flight or while a person is acting to promote immediate flight from the predicate felony. See id. at 333 (defining in the course of as in the progress or process of; during); and id. at 575 (defining furtherance as a furthering, or helping forward; advancement; promotion). Fourth, the immediate flight must be therefrom, indicating that the flight must be from the predicate felony, as opposed to being from some other episode or event. In 1971, the General Assembly added the words immediate flight therefrom to the statute. See ch. 121, sec. 1, § 40-3-102(1)(b), 1971 Colo. Sess. Laws 388, 418. When these words are read together with the initial words of the statute, which provide that one may act either alone or with one or more persons, immediate flight terminates when a sole participant in the subject felony is subject to complete custody, or, alternatively, when all participants in a predicate felony involving more than one participant are subject to complete custody. [8] The plain language of our statute supports the legal principle that a co-participant in a predicate felony may be liable for felony murder even after arrest while another participant remains in immediate flight. The statute deems conduct as murder when one participates in the predicate felony and a death is caused in the course of or in furtherance of immediate flight, which, by its terms, is not limited to the flight of any particular participant. The felony-murder statute regards all participants as liable for felony murder when a person acts with one or more persons in the commission of a specifically enumerated felony and death is caused by anyone in the course of or in furtherance ... of immediate flight from the predicate felony. § 18-3-102(1)(b). Just as important as what the statute says is what the statute does not say. As it is worded, the statute does not differentiate between liability for participants in the predicate felony who are in immediate flight and those who are not; nor does the statute state that some participants may be liable for a death that occurs in the course of or in furtherance of immediate flight but that others may not. The statute also does not state that if a co-participant's actual flight ends as a result of arrest, and another participant remains in flight, that immediate flight has ended for the co-participant under arrest. Most importantly, the statute does not say that a co-participant may be liable for felony murder for only those deaths caused during that co-participant's immediate flight. We should not construe these omissions by the General Assembly as unintentional. Zamarripa v. Q & T Food Stores, Inc., 929 P.2d 1332, 1339 (Colo.1997). We next turn to the statutory affirmative defense to determine how it affects our analysis of this statutory crime. The General Assembly created an affirmative defense to felony murder that allows a defendant to avoid felony-murder prosecution if he not only had nothing to do with the killing itself, but was unarmed and had no reason to believe that any of his confederates were armed or intended to engage in any conduct dangerous to life. § 40-3-102 cmt., 12 C.R.S. (1963) (1971 Perm. Cum.Supp.). [9] The affirmative defense also provides that if a defendant discovers that a co-participant is armed or dangerous during the commission of the crime or in flight therefrom, the defendant may obtain the benefit of this defense by immediately disengaging from either the predicate felony or the flight. See § 18-3-102(2)(f). Like the plain language of the statutory offense, the affirmative defense provides no support for the theory that arrest, by itself, terminates a co-participant's liability for felony murder as a matter of law. This conclusion, however, does not mean a jury should not consider a co-participant's arrest as a factor in deciding whether the prosecution has satisfied its burden of proving that the affirmative defense does not apply.