Most students who begin the journey of studying Gracie/ Brazilian jiu jitsu hope never to be in a situation in which they have to use a jiu jitsu technique to injure another person. The reality however, is that many techniques empower students to be able to: render others unconscious, break joints, break bones, or slam a person to the ground with a great impact. Some jiu jitsu self-defense techniques are capable of inflicting death.
Most Brazilian jiu jitsu schools do not educate students on use of force laws that define the boundaries of the lawful use of force in self-defense. Few schools offer even ethical and moral guidance on the use of the powerful techniques of jiu jitsu on other people. This is a dangerous flaw in the typical model for teaching jiu jitsu in the Lakewood and Denver area. The Jefferson county Sheriff's Office has links to recommended laws to review on self-defense laws. Lakewood and Wheat Ridge are in Jefferson county, Colorado.
NOTE: The legal analysis for defending oneself in one's own home from an intruder is a entirely different set of elements.
Colorado law provides harsh penalties for any person who even recklessly causes body injury to another person without legal justification. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 18-3-(201-204.) Bodily injury is broadly defined in Colorado self-defense law as: physical pain, illness, or any impairment of physical or mental condition. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 18-1-901. Simply stated, this means by simply inflicting momentary "pain" onto another person is punishable by up to 364 days in the county jail.
Colorado law provides legal justification for some uses of force under narrowly defined circumstances. The general rule is set out in Colorado Revised Statutes Section 18-1-704, ...a person is justified in using physical force upon another person in order to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by that other person, and he may use a degree of force which he reasonably believes is necessary for that purpose.
The Colorado legal self-defense framework is easier to understand broken down into its main ideas:
Reasonable Belief
It is not enough for a person to simply claim they were defending themself to enjoy the legal protections of the Colorado self-defense law. A belief that self-defense is necessary must be reasonable. The practical effect of this requirement is that a person on trial must present evidence that convinces a jury that the totality of circumstances would have led a hypothetical "reasonable person" to believe that force was necessary.
Use or Imminent Use
This element requires the unlawful force being defended must be actually occurring or that it is on the immediate verge of happening. A mere verbal threat of force at some unknown time into the future is not enough by itself to justify force in self-defense. For example, if two people are in an argument on the telephone, and one says, "I'm going to beat you up!" It is unlikely an assault later committed by the person receiving the threat would be justified by the previous threat over the telephone alone. Although the telephone threat could be part of a totality of circumstances examination, along with other factors that existed at the time of the physical force used in self-defense.
Unlawful Physical Force
The behavior being defending must be an act of physical force. Verbal provocation alone that is not physical will not generally justify use-of-force in self-defense. The act must also be unlawful. If the other person for example, is a police officer making a lawful arrest, the unwanted physical contact is lawful, and self-defense would NOT be justified.
Reasonable Degree of Force
After legal consideration is given to whether force of any kind is justifiable, the next question a Colorado jury will be asked to consider is whether the amount of force used was necessary. The seriousness of the injury inflicted, and whether that amount of injury was justifiable, will be the last factor considered by a jury. Colorado law requires that the amount of force used AND the degree of injury inflicted to have been necessary.
Some factors that courts can examine in evaluating the reasonableness of the amount of injury someone inflicts in the name of self-defense include:
amount of force used or attempted by the bad guy,
size difference between the bad guy and the defender,
possession or use of a deadly weapon,
presence of multiple attackers,
known history of assaults/ known degree of force used in past assaults,
existing injuries / disabilities that limit the ability of the victim to defend
degree of isolation of the attack location/ distance from potential help.
The above list are the most common factors that could have an influence on a determination of whether a degree of force used in self-defense was reasonable. There are however other factors that could come into consideration. Of course any of these factors could weigh against the jiu jitsu defender if they exist on the defender's side of the equation.
This area of self-defense law is where jiu jitsu is the most amazing martial art. A jiu jitsu student who has learned proper self-defense has a wide range of techniques available to them. A practiced student can choose a technique to end a confrontation at any level of violence. There are techniques that allow simple control of an aggressor without hurting them at all. There are joint locks that can be used to obtain compliance through the threat of pain or injury. There are also chokes that can render an attacker unconscious and joint locks that destroy an attackers limb to end a violent confrontation quickly. The choice of technique and the degree of force applied must be based on necessity and moral evaluation of the given situation. This can difficult if a student has no instruction in these considerations, especially for children.
Cannot Provoke the Unlawful Force or Be the Initial Aggressor
Another consideration in Colorado self-defense law is how the physical
confrontation began. A jiu jitsu student will lose the protections of self-defense if they: provoked the attacker to become violent or if the jiu jitsu defender was the initial aggressor. Additionally, a person claiming self-defense cannot have entered into an agreement to fight by choice. Therefore, the ceremonial mutual chest bump just before the fight could very well erase any claim of self-defense for what comes after.
DISCLAIMER: No information provided in this overview of Colorado self-defense law is legal advice about the lawfulness of any particular use of force under any specific circumstances. Every individual case will be decided on its own totality of unique facts and circumstances.
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Professor Jim Medley is a licensed attorney in Colorado and in Texas. Medley has practiced criminal law for 24 years and has defended hundreds of cases involving the use of force. He has taught as a professor of Criminal Justice and has taught college level courses in Use of Force and Criminal Law. Medley has studied jiu jitsu for over 40 years and has black belts in both Japanese jūjitsu and Gracie jiu jitsu. He has also been a police use of force instructor and he has worked as a night-club bouncer.
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