Inmates use Colorado’s ‘Make My Day’ law to defend cells. Lawmakers object

Derek Key

Colorado lawmakers advanced a bill this week to tweak the state’s “Make My Day” law so inmates couldn’t use it to defend their jail cells.

As The Associated Press reports, the law had already been used “at least twice to exonerate Colorado inmates who killed fellow inmates who entered their cells.”

The Colorado law says it’s legal to kill someone if they threaten your dwelling.

Lawyers here were able to argue two inmates who stabbed another to death in 2011 were threatened, and that their cell was their dwelling.

A district attorney argued the way the law is currently written in Colorado would prevent her from filing murder charges in an inmate killing. Others worried an inmate could cite the law after killing a prison guard.

Watch lawmakers briefly discuss the bill below:


 

[Photo credit: Derek Key via Creative Commons on Flickr]

1 COMMENT

  1. Gee, who EVER would have thought that a law making it legal to MURDER someone could be used in a negative way? I have to wonder just how much ALEC paid to get this IDIOT law put into our state. ALL of these laws have created nothing but more fear, hate and death for this and every other state that have them.

    How about if you don’t tweak it, but you just LOSE it? How about if we treat people like HUMAN BEINGS first, and worry about it afterward? Shooting someone who comes to your door is NOT how one acts in a decent society. We no longer are one. People walk up to a door to ask directions and end up dead because the idiot behind the door was so afraid they couldn’t even be bothered to ask what’s up. THIS is how a society is supposed to act towards itself?

    Don’t tweak this idiot law, LOSE IT. It causes nothing but death and destruction, and that is NOT what law is supposed to be for. This is a BAD law, it was BAD law when ALEC pushed it, it STAYS bad law, regardless of whatever tweaks one does to it. You have 50 pounds of absolute CRAP in this 10 pound bag, NO amount of tweaking is going to fix it. It’s MISERABLE from it’s inception, time to recognize that and be DONE with this nonsense.

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