The Colorado Crime of First Degree Kidnapping 18-5-301

To understand the Colorado Criminal Code and more specifically the charge or charges in the Complaint and Information or Grand Jury Indictment against you – you need TWO things.

I. You Will Need To Understand The Actual Statutory Crime With Which You Have Been Charged

– The statute, as of 2016, appears first on this page.

II. You Will Also Need To Understand How The Jury Or Judge Reads The Elements – ( a jury instruction “breakout” of the necessary parts or list of things that make up the crime)

– The Jury Instructions for most of the main forms of the crimes with which individuals are charged – appears after a reprint of the statute defining the crime.

The Colorado Statute Defining First Degree Kidnapping 18-3-301

18-3-301.  First degree kidnapping

(1)  Any person who does any of the following acts with the intent thereby to force the victim or any other person to make any concession or give up anything of value in order to secure a release of a person under the offender’s actual or apparent control commits first degree kidnapping.

(a)  Forcibly seizes and carries any person from one place to another; or
(b)  Entices or persuades any person to go from one place to another; or
(c)  Imprisons or forcibly secretes any person.

(2) Whoever commits first degree kidnapping is guilty of a class 1 felony if the person kidnapped
shall have suffered bodily injury; but no person convicted of first degree kidnapping shall suffer
the death penalty if the person kidnapped was liberated alive prior to the conviction of the
kidnapper.
(3) Whoever commits first degree kidnapping commits a class 2 felony if, prior to his
conviction, the person kidnapped was liberated unharmed.

The Colorado Jury Instruction for First Degree Kidnapping 18-3-301

FIRST DEGREE KIDNAPPING (FORCIBLY SEIZED AND CARRIED)

The elements of the crime of first degree kidnapping (forcibly seized and carried) are:

1. That the defendant,

2. in the State of Colorado, at or about the date and place charged,

3. with the intent,

4. to force a person to make any concession or give up anything of value in order to secure a release of a person under the defendant’s actual or apparent control,

5. forcibly seized and carried any person from one place to another.

[6. and that the defendant’s conduct was not legally authorized by the affirmative defense[s] in Instruction[s] ___.]

To Enlarge Felony Sentencing Chart – Click Anywhere On Chart