Colorado Jury Instructions-Criminal (COLJI-Crim) (2016)

F:88 DEADLY WEAPON

[“Deadly weapon” means a firearm, whether loaded or unloaded.]

[“Deadly weapon” means a knife, bludgeon, or any other weapon, device, instrument, material, or substance, whether animate or inanimate, that, in the manner it is used or intended to be used, is capable of producing death or serious bodily injury.]

COMMENT

1. See § 18-1-901(3)(e), C.R.S. 2016.

2. See Instruction F:154 (defining “firearm”); Instruction F:194 (defining “knife”); Instruction F:332 (defining “serious bodily injury”).

3. See People v. Saleh, 45 P.3d 1272, 1275 (Colo. 2002) (any object can be a deadly weapon if it is used in a manner capable of producing death or serious bodily injury; body parts can be deadly weapons depending upon the manner in which they are used; whether an object is a deadly weapon does not depend upon the ultimate result of an object’s use; the statute does not require that the object actually cause serious bodily injury; rather, it must be “capable of producing” such injury).

4. The definition of a “deadly weapon” was amended in 2013, following the supreme court’s decision in Montez v. People, 2012 CO 6, ¶¶ 3-22, 269 P.3d 1228, 1229-32 (the General Assembly has not classified firearms as per se deadly weapons for purposes of the first degree burglary statute; the legislature did not intend theft of a firearm from a building to constitute first degree burglary regardless of the manner the burglar used or intended to use the firearm).