Opinion ID: 4544956
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Retreat

Text: ¶18 In Colorado, a person may use physical force against another “in order to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by that other person, and he may use a degree of force which he reasonably believes to be necessary for that purpose.” § 18-1-704(1), C.R.S. (2019). ¶19 “In Colorado, only initial aggressors must retreat before using force in selfdefense.” Cassels v. People, 92 P.3d 951, 956 (Colo. 2004). So, a non-aggressor may 8 assert self-defense without (1) considering whether a reasonable person would retreat to safety rather than resorting to physical force, or (2) actually retreating from an attack even if she could safely do so. People v. Castillo, 2014 COA 140M, ¶ 74, __ P.3d __ (quoting People v. Toler, 9 P.3d 341, 347 (Colo. 2000)), rev’d on other grounds, 2018 CO 62, 421 P.3d 1141. ¶20 Accordingly, the prosecution may not argue that a defendant is barred from acting in self-defense unless she first retreats from an encounter. See Brown v. United States, 256 U.S. 335, 343 (1921) (holding that retreat “is not a condition of immunity”). ¶21 Still, the prosecution contends that we have already recognized the distinction between improper arguments that impose a duty to retreat and proper arguments regarding a defendant’s failure to retreat that undermine the reasonableness of a defendant’s use of force. According to the prosecution, a jury must consider the “totality of the circumstances” surrounding a defensive encounter, which includes any available but unused avenues of retreat. They contend that such evidence could be helpful to the jury in evaluating “the reasonableness of the defendant’s belief that [s]he needed to use self-defense in the given situation, and . . . the reasonableness of the actual force used by the defendant to repel the apparent danger.” See Riley v. People, 266 P.3d 1089, 1094 (Colo. 2011). 9 ¶22 On the other hand, Monroe urges this court to prohibit, for any purpose, argument regarding a defendant’s failure to retreat. She questions its probative value and asserts that it will invite juries to improperly conduct a post hoc examination of the reasonableness of the defendant’s conduct. ¶23 We agree with Monroe. ¶24 First, we reject the prosecution’s assertion that the Colorado Court of Appeals has already recognized the permissibility of such argument. For support, the prosecution points to Castillo and People v. Martinez, 224 P.3d 1026 (Colo. App. 2009). But in neither Castillo nor Martinez did the court of appeals permit the prosecution to argue that the defendant didn’t act reasonably in self-defense because the defendant failed to use an available avenue of retreat. ¶25 In Castillo, the prosecutor made multiple comments during closing argument that implied the defendant should have retreated instead of using force. ¶ 72. The prosecution argued on appeal that such comments were meant to impeach the defendant’s testimony that he couldn’t physically leave the scene. Id. at ¶ 73. But the division noted that it was possible to interpret those comments “as stating that it was unreasonable for defendant to shoot . . . rather than leave.” Id. (emphasis added). Under this interpretation, it deemed the prosecutor’s comments improper, since a person using defensive force need not consider “whether a reasonable person in the situation would opt to retreat to safety rather 10 than resorting to physical force to defend against unlawful force.” Id. at ¶¶ 74, 77 (quoting Toler, 9 P.3d at 347). ¶26 The comments made by the prosecutor in Castillo (“He could have left. He could have kept driving, but somebody said something that pissed him off,” id. at ¶ 72), are quite similar to those made by the prosecution here (“Again, she did not have any duty to retreat but could have backed away, if she wanted to, if she was actually afraid.”). The Castillo division considered such argument improper commentary on the defendant’s failure to retreat. See id. at ¶¶ 74, 77. Thus, Castillo does not support the prosecution’s position. ¶27 And neither does Martinez. The defendant there had already started to drive away when he observed the victim leaving a bar. Martinez, 224 P.3d at 1029–30. The defendant then stopped his car, and a fight ensued. Id. at 1030. The defendant claimed that he acted in self-defense because he was “so scared and . . . nervous” about the victim. Id. at 1033. During closing argument, the prosecutor challenged those assertions, stating, “They could have left. They had the perfect opportunity if [defendant] was so scared and he was very nervous about this.” Id. at 1031 (alteration in original). Defense counsel objected, arguing that the prosecutor’s comments misstated the law because the defendant had no duty to retreat. Id. ¶28 But, when viewed in context, it’s clear that the prosecutor’s comments were directed, not at the defendant’s failure to retreat once he felt threatened, but his 11 decision to enter the fray, which arguably made him an initial aggressor. Id. (quoting the prosecutor as saying, “What happened? They made a U-turn. And you can see it on that video. They didn’t back out of the parking lot and happen to drive by. They made a U-turn and drove around for the confrontation.”). Further, the trial court admitted the comments for that purpose. Id. (quoting the trial judge as saying, “I think it’s in line with the instruction on the affirmative defense. If you’ll note, we have some testimony that [defendant] was the initial aggressor.”). Thus, the argument in Martinez wasn’t admitted for the purpose of undermining the reasonableness of the defendant’s claim that he acted in self-defense. ¶29 So, no appellate court in Colorado (at least in a published opinion) has permitted argument regarding an unused avenue of retreat, even if offered only to attack the reasonableness of a defendant’s use of force. And we decline to do so today. ¶30 To allow the prosecution to argue that a defendant’s failure to retreat undermines the reasonableness of that defendant’s self-defense claim would cripple the no-duty-to-retreat rule. The only inferences a jury could draw from that line of argument are that, if retreat was possible but not pursued, a defendant must not have acted reasonably by using force or must not have actually perceived a threat, since she would have fled if she had. It thus conditions the use of defensive force on flight, so the only defendants “who would not have to retreat 12 in the face of . . . force would be those who have no ability to retreat in the first place.” Commonwealth v. Hasch, 421 S.W.3d 349, 361 (Ky. 2013). ¶31 Further, this type of argument is of limited value to a jury. The prosecution contends that argument regarding a defendant’s failure to retreat is particularly relevant to a defendant’s claim that she faced an imminent use of unlawful force. But this argument is premised on a faulty assumption, since not all individuals facing a threat respond by fleeing. See Karin Roelofs, Freeze for Action: Neurobiological Mechanisms in Animal and Human Freezing, 372 Phil. Transactions Royal Soc’y B 1, 1 (2017), https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/ rstb.2016.0206 [https://perma.cc/48G3-6VTW] (“In stressful situations, . . . most people tend to fall back on primary ‘freeze—fight—flight’ tendencies and have great difficulty controlling their actions or shifting flexibly between passive freezing and active fight-or-flight.”). Thus, a defendant’s decision to retreat is no more proof that she faced an imminent threat of unlawful force than a decision to remain and fight. ¶32 There’s also a significant risk that such argument would confuse a jury, which weighs against allowing its admission. See CRE 403 (“Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of 13 cumulative evidence.”). Here, the prosecutors and trial court struggled to distinguish between arguments that imposed an outright duty to retreat and those that didn’t. How, then, can we trust that a jury won’t erroneously reject a defendant’s self-defense claim simply because the defendant failed to retreat? See Griego v. People, 19 P.3d 1, 8 (Colo. 2001) (observing that following an “erroneous instruction precludes the jury from making a finding on the actual element of the offense” (quoting Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 10 (1999))).3 ¶33 Our prior statements directing juries to consider the totality of the circumstances when assessing the reasonableness of a defendant’s use of force, in Riley, 266 P.3d at 1094, and Kaufman v. People, 202 P.3d 542, 551 (Colo. 2009), don’t require a different result. Beyond those general statements of law, Riley and Kaufman are largely inapposite: Riley involved multiple assailants, 266 P.3d at 1091, while Kaufman involved the effect that an erroneous jury instruction on second degree assault had on the defendant’s self-defense claim, 202 P.3d at 550–51. Neither case involved retreat, so neither required this court to consider how the 3 Although Griego involved an error in a jury instruction, id. at 4, its rationale remains relevant to this case: If a trial court were to expressly (albeit unintentionally) direct a jury to consider argument imposing a duty to retreat, this would preclude the jury from properly evaluating the defendant’s self-defense claim. 14 no-duty-to-retreat rule affects a jury’s ability to consider the “totality of the circumstances.” ¶34 If anything, Riley and Kaufman affirm the principle that a jury should consider a defendant’s perception of events as they unfold. Kaufman, 202 P.3d at 551; see also Riley, 266 P.3d at 1094 (permitting a jury to consider the number of assailants “reasonably appearing to be threatening the defendant”). And allowing argument regarding an unused avenue of retreat might encourage a jury to erroneously focus just on the reasonableness of a defendant’s response to a threat without actually linking that response to the reasonableness of a defendant’s perception of a threat. Cf. Brown, 256 U.S. at 343 (“Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.”). ¶35 True, there’s an analytical distinction between completely barring defendants from asserting self-defense unless they attempt to flee and arguing that an avenue of retreat undermines the reasonableness of a defendant’s use of force. See id. (“Rationally the failure to retreat is a circumstance to be considered with all the others in order to determine whether the defendant went farther than he was justified in doing; not a categorical proof of guilt.”). But, though “in the abstract, the [prosecution’s] theory is metaphysically appealing,” it would prove unworkable in reality. Hasch, 421 S.W.3d at 362–63. The line between argument that imposes a duty to retreat (a threatened person should retreat instead of using 15 force) and argument that undermines the reasonableness of a defendant’s use of force (a threatened person would retreat instead of using force) is too thin to allow the latter.4