Key Takeaways
Self-defense in Colorado Springs means using a degree of force you reasonably believe is necessary to stop an imminent threat of unlawful force. That definition sounds simple, and an arrest report rarely reflects it. People who defend themselves in a parking lot, a driveway, or their own living room are routinely charged with assault or menacing while the facts get sorted out later.
The distance between a lawful act and a felony charge usually comes down to details: Who escalated, what the other person was doing, and where the encounter happened.
At Liberty Law Center, we understand that acting to protect yourself can still lead to criminal charges. Our experienced Colorado Springs criminal defense attorneys evaluate every detail of the incident, build strong legal defenses, and fight to protect our clients' rights. If you have been arrested after acting in self-defense, call (719) 285-4889 for a confidential consultation.
Colorado's core self-defense rule sits in Colorado Revised Statutes (C.R.S.) § 18-1-704. It justifies using physical force against another person to defend yourself or a third person from what you reasonably believe to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force.
The statute separates ordinary physical force from deadly physical force. That single distinction shapes nearly every self-defense analysis we handle at Liberty Law Center.
Two things must be true at the moment you act. You must actually believe force is necessary, and that belief must be one a reasonable person could hold under the same circumstances.
Your belief does not have to be correct. Someone who reaches toward a waistband during a confrontation may prove to be unarmed. The law measures what a reasonable person would have perceived at the time, not what investigators learn afterward.
The statute permits the degree of force you reasonably believe necessary for that purpose, and nothing beyond it.
This proportionality requirement is where most claims break down. A shove answered with a shove reads differently than a shove answered with a weapon, and prosecutors build their cases inside that gap.
The same standard covers force used to protect someone else. You stand in the position of the person you are protecting, judged on what you reasonably believed about the danger they faced.
Deadly physical force carries a far narrower justification. Under subsection (2) of the statute, you must first reasonably believe that a lesser degree of force would be inadequate.
Past that threshold, Colorado recognizes several circumstances:
Meeting one of these conditions does not end the inquiry, because the reasonableness of your belief stays open to challenge.
Both halves of that phrase carry weight. The anticipated harm must be severe, and it must be about to happen. Imminence matters as much as severity. A threat to come back tomorrow does not justify deadly force today.
The listed crimes give you a justification that does not depend on proving you feared for your life. Consider a driver who forces open your car door at a stoplight and pulls at your arm. That conduct can fit robbery, which appears in the statute.
Colorado occupies unusual ground on retreat.
No Colorado statute carries the stand your ground label. The legislature never enacted a freestanding no duty to retreat law comparable to those in Florida or Texas.
Sources that call Colorado a stand your ground state are describing case law, not a statute.
The Colorado Supreme Court settled this in People v. Toler. The court held that a person does not have to retreat to the wall before using force in self-defense unless that person was the initial aggressor.
Toler reached further. Even a trespasser keeps the right to defend against unlawful force without retreating first, provided they did not start the encounter.
You are therefore not required to flee a threat anywhere you are lawfully present. Whether retreat was possible can still shape how a jury views what you did.
Colorado's strongest protection applies inside the home. C.R.S. § 18-1-704.5, commonly called the Make My Day law, allows an occupant of a dwelling to use any degree of physical force, including deadly force, against a person who makes an unlawful entry.
The Colorado Supreme Court laid out the elements in People v. Guenther. An occupant must show that another person made an unlawful entry into the dwelling.
The occupant must also have reasonably believed that the person committed a crime beyond the uninvited entry, or was committing or intended to commit one against a person or property. Finally, the occupant must have reasonably believed the intruder might use physical force against anyone inside, no matter how slight.
The statute reaches the dwelling and nothing more. Porches, driveways, detached garages, fenced yards, vehicles, and businesses sit outside its scope.
Colorado courts have declined to extend this immunity to a shooting on a porch. When an encounter happens at the threshold rather than inside, the analysis shifts back to ordinary self-defense law.
This statute offers more than a defense at trial. It provides immunity from criminal prosecution and civil liability.
A defendant raises it before trial through a motion to dismiss and must establish the elements by a preponderance of the evidence. If the judge denies that motion, the same facts can still be presented to a jury as an affirmative defense.
If you used force against someone who entered your home, the timing of that pretrial motion matters. Call Liberty Law Center at 719-285-4889 for a free case evaluation before the prosecution settles on its theory of the case.
Two additional statutes address property, and both cut against the assumption that ownership expands your right to use force.
C.R.S. § 18-1-705 allows a person in possession or control of a building or land to use reasonable and appropriate force to prevent or terminate an unlawful trespass.
Deadly force is available under this section only in defense of a person as described in § 18-1-704, or to prevent what you reasonably believe is an attempt to commit first degree arson.
C.R.S. § 18-1-706 permits reasonable force to prevent theft, criminal mischief, or criminal tampering. It expressly limits deadly force to the circumstances already described in the self-defense statute.
Picture someone backing your truck out of your driveway. Firing at that truck is not justified, because no person is in danger.
Subsection (3) of the self-defense statute removes the justification entirely in certain situations, and prosecutors reach for these exclusions constantly. Colorado's official use of force overview reflects the same limits.
The statute names the following circumstances:
Any one of these can defeat an otherwise reasonable claim of self-defense.
The initial aggressor exclusion has a built in exit. If you withdraw from the encounter and effectively communicate that intent, and the other person continues or threatens unlawful force anyway, the justification returns.
Communication is the difficult part. Backing away silently while the other person pursues you may amount to withdrawal, though the record needs to show it through witnesses, video, or messages.
Self-defense operates as an affirmative defense to most charges involving intentional or knowing conduct. Under C.R.S. § 18-1-407, once the issue is raised, guilt must be established beyond a reasonable doubt as to that issue along with every other element of the offense.
That shift is significant. The prosecution cannot simply prove you struck someone; it must also disprove that you acted in self-defense.
Cases in the Fourth Judicial District, which covers El Paso County, most often involve assault or menacing counts. Menacing charges frequently follow encounters where a weapon was displayed but never used.
Surveillance footage, medical records documenting your own injuries, and witnesses who saw who moved first all lose value as time passes, so our team works quickly to preserve that record.
Colorado has no stand your ground statute. The protection comes from case law holding that only an initial aggressor must retreat before using force.
Not if you were lawfully present and did not start the encounter. Colorado imposes a duty to retreat only on the initial aggressor.
That statute protects the dwelling itself. Detached garages, porches, yards, and vehicles fall outside it, so ordinary self-defense rules apply in those places.
No. Colorado permits only reasonable non-deadly force to prevent theft, unless the situation independently threatens a person with death or great bodily injury.
You must present some credible evidence raising the issue. The prosecution then carries the burden of disproving self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
Being charged after protecting yourself is disorienting, because the law that shields you only works when someone puts it in front of the court. Colorado does not ask you to prove your innocence, though it does require credible evidence raising self-defense before the prosecution has to disprove it. That evidence has to be located and preserved while it still exists.
We handle assault, menacing, and weapons charges throughout El Paso County. We reconstruct the sequence of events, request footage before it is overwritten, and evaluate whether a pretrial immunity motion under the Make My Day law fits your facts. Attorney William Beck can review what happened and explain the options available to you.
Do not assume a case will resolve itself because you were the one attacked. Call Liberty Law Center at 719-285-4889 for a free case evaluation about self-defense laws in Colorado Springs.
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