Colorado murder bill advances: Sentencing cuts collide with voter mandate

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice

Colorado voters approved Proposition 128 in November 2024 with 62 percent support, requiring those convicted of second-degree murder and several other violent felonies to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence before becoming eligible for parole.

Seventeen months later, House Bill 26-1281 is headed to the House floor. While much of the debate has focused on how the bill treats completed murders, most of its effect may come from how it changes penalties for attempted cases — incidents far more common in Colorado.

The bill would reclassify some first-degree murder convictions as second-degree and also reduces penalties for attempted cases—crimes that occur far more often than completed homicides, including drive-by shootings or shots fired into homes where no one is killed but lives are put at risk. 

The changes affect how certain killings are charged and how attempted cases are punished.

The Judiciary Committee advanced it April 14 on a tight 6-5 vote, with one Democrat — Chad Clifford — joining Republicans in opposition.

What the bill does — and what it preserves

Under current Colorado law, a killing committed with “extreme indifference to the value of human life” is first-degree murder, carrying mandatory life without parole. 

Dan Meyer of the Spero Justice Institute told the committee Colorado is “one of only five states that have life without parole as a possible punishment for this offense” — and the only one making it mandatory for every conviction.

The bill narrows that trigger but stops short of eliminating it.

Under the bill, a killing would remain first-degree only in a narrow set of circumstances: when more than one person is killed, when the victim is under 12, when the victim is an on-duty first responder, or when a single death is paired with serious injury to at least two others involving a deadly weapon. 

Outside those scenarios, the charge would drop to second-degree under a new subsection.

The sentencing range runs from 24 to 48 years. For comparison, standard second-degree murder carries a minimum of 16. The floor here is eight years higher. Then Proposition 128 applies, requiring 85 percent of the sentence to be served. 

At the low end, that works out to just over 20 years in prison before a parole board can even consider release in a second-degree murder case.

Jessica Dotter of the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council told the committee defendants would be “back in front of a parole board likely within 12 to 14 years.” That estimate appears to reflect pre-Proposition 128 parole rules—rules voters replaced in 2024. The actual floor, under the bill’s mandatory minimum and Proposition 128 combined, is 20.4 years.

The fiscal note projects up to three defendants per year statewide would see this reclassification. District Attorney George Brauchler told the committee his research going back to 1987 found just 24 total standalone extreme-indifference murder convictions statewide across nearly four decades.

The fiscal note also projects roughly $34 million in savings over 20 years. That estimate is based on how long people currently serve for similar offenses.

Those savings are calculated using Colorado’s statewide average length of stay for class 2 felonies — about 17 years. That figure sits nearly three years below the bill’s own 24-year mandatory minimum and more than three years below the floor Proposition 128 creates. The savings may be overstated.

Most cases affected by the bill involve attempted crimes, not completed murders. That shift changes where the bill has its greatest effect.

Reduced penalty for attempts

For every completed extreme-indifference murder in Colorado, there are far more attempts — drive-by shootings where nobody dies, bullets fired into houses that miss, confrontations that end with gunfire but not bodies. 

Right now, those cases are typically charged as attempted extreme-indifference murder, a class 2 felony carrying 16 to 48 years, with parole eligibility after 75 percent of the sentence is served.

The proposal would drop that to a class 3 felony, with a sentencing range of 10 to 32 years, significantly lowering the sentencing range. 

At the current minimum, a defendant becomes parole-eligible after 12 years. Under the new classification, that falls to 7.5 years. That is the earliest point a defendant could be considered for parole, not a guaranteed release.

The fiscal note projects roughly 33 defendants per year would see this change — more than ten times the reach of the completed-murder reclassification driving most of the public debate. Most cases affected by the bill involve attempted crimes, not completed murders.

That is the part of the bill that concerned law enforcement witnesses most. That concern came through clearly in testimony from law enforcement.

Patrick Freeman, a Lakewood Police Department legal advisor testifying for the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police, told the committee: “A road rage shooting, especially a shooting into a vehicle with multiple occupants, would be dramatically affected by this bill.” 

Freeman added, “Beyond the potential for lowering a road rage shooting murder by two felony classes, this decrease in extreme indifference murder would be even more dramatic with the potential for a decrease by two felony classes on an attempt — with the potential to have a person who shoots into a vehicle with multiple occupants potentially facing nothing more than class four or class five felonies.”

A 2024 Colorado Public Radio analysis found Colorado’s rate of road-rage shooting incidents is more than double the national average. 

Brauchler said the changes would affect how those cases are charged. “The practical application of what you’re about to do,” he told the committee, “is to arm the public defenders with the ability to go to court and say, ‘Jury, you should find him guilty of extreme indifference murder,’ knowing that person will likely be parole eligible at somewhere around 20 to 30 years instead of facing life without parole.”

Sponsors see it differently. Rep. Cecelia Espenoza argued the reduction is a question of proportionality. “Especially when you listen to the attempted extreme indifference, how can you attempt to be extremely indifferent?” she told the committee. Consecutive sentencing still applies for each victim, sponsors note, meaning stacked charges continue to produce substantial prison time at the lower classification.

The bipartisan passenger

The bill does not deal only with murder charges. It also brings in a separate set of changes tied to vehicular homicide.

HB26-1281 also includes provisions that are moving separately in Senate Bill 26-072, a bipartisan measure co-sponsored by Republican Sen. John Carson and Democrat Sen. Marc Snyder, aimed at increasing penalties for certain vehicular homicide cases and upgrading some conduct from a misdemeanor to a felony.

The Senate passed that bill 31–0 on April 10, following testimony from the family of Magnus White, a 17-year-old Team USA cyclist killed near Boulder in July 2023 by a driver who had been drinking, was wearing AirPods, and lost consciousness behind the wheel.

At sentencing, Magnus’s father addressed the court. “She didn’t just kill Magnus,” Michael White said. “She killed his mom, his dad, his brother. She didn’t just take his life, she took all of ours with it.”

HB26-1281 cleared committee on a narrow 6–5 vote, while SB26-072 moved through the Senate without opposition. The same provisions now sit in both bills—one backed without opposition, the other advancing by the slimmest margin.

The combined package creates aggravated vehicular homicide as a crime of violence — triggered when a driver kills someone while carrying two prior DUI convictions, fleeing police, evading another felony, or driving at extreme speed. 

Then it goes further. A provision of current Colorado law allows a fatal crash caused by a distracted driver to be charged as a class 1 misdemeanor. The bill repeals it. In those cases, a fatal crash tied to negligence would be treated as a class 5 felony rather than a misdemeanor.

Conduct that could currently be charged as a misdemeanor would instead be treated as a felony.

State data provides context for how often these cases occur.

Over the decade ending in 2022, 718 Coloradans died in crashes involving distracted drivers—about one every five days, according to CDOT. A 2023 survey found 76 percent of drivers admitted to using their phone behind the wheel.

Under current law, killing someone while doing it can land a driver a misdemeanor — the same category as a bad check.

Under either bill, those cases would be charged as felonies instead of misdemeanors. 

Those same provisions are now moving through both bills, giving them two possible paths forward. If HB26-1281 fails, the vehicular homicide changes could still move on their own through SB26-072.

Where the bill stands now

HB26-1281 has cleared committee and now moves to the House Committee of the Whole for second reading before any final vote.

Committee Chair Rep. Javier Mabrey, who voted yes, said in closing remarks, that “this bill does not end long sentences in Colorado. It preserves the most serious consequences for the most serious cases.” 

Clifford, the one Democrat who voted no, was not persuaded. “I do see many extreme indifferences the same as premeditated murder,” he said. “Like a mass shooting, for instance. You might have even gone with the intention to kill one person and you walk in and you kill 14. The other 13, to me, are the same. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there. But I am damn sure trying.”

For Colorado voters who approved Proposition 128 with 62 percent support less than 18 months ago, the April 14 vote leaves a question the bill itself does not resolve. That mandate said violent offenders should serve more time. It did not address whether the legislature could redefine which offenders qualify.