Background
One night in June 2017, Jason Brown drove his truck through an alley and ran over two people sleeping under a white blanket in an alcove. A witness immediately told Brown through his open window that he had “just ran those people over.” Brown denied it and sped away while the witness chased him to get his license plate. One victim, D.W., survived with serious injuries requiring emergency surgery; the other, K.M., died that night. Officers who located Brown at his home observed that he had bloodshot eyes and smelled of alcohol.
The prosecution charged Brown with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death (LTS (death)) and leaving the scene resulting in serious bodily injury (LTS (SBI)) under Colorado statute § 42-4-1601, neither of which contains an express culpable mental state. The jury was instructed on both offenses as strict liability crimes, consistent with the Colorado Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in People v. Manzo. The jury convicted Brown on both LTS counts. The trial court then adjudicated Brown a habitual offender — without submitting that question to the jury — based on six prior felony convictions in Colorado and California, and sentenced him to sixty years in prison.
Brown appealed on two grounds: (1) that Manzo was no longer good law after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Rehaif v. United States, 588 U.S. 225, which Brown read as requiring proof of a “knowingly” mental state, and (2) that Colorado’s habitual offender statute was facially unconstitutional because it permitted a judge rather than a jury to make the factual findings necessary to enhance his sentence. A unanimous Court of Appeals division affirmed, and the Colorado Supreme Court granted certiorari.
The Court’s Holding
On the LTS strict-liability issue, the court held that Manzo remains good law and that Rehaif does not undermine it. The court explained that Rehaif addressed a federal statute that already contained an express “knowingly” requirement — the question there was only which elements that mens rea reached. Rehaif thus had no bearing on whether to imply a culpable mental state in a statute, like § 42-4-1601, that contains none. The court further noted that the General Assembly had amended the LTS statute four times since Manzo — including elevating LTS (death) to a class 3 felony — without ever adding a mens rea element or signaling disapproval of Manzo. Legislative history confirmed the purpose: to eliminate any incentive for intoxicated drivers to flee by placing the LTS penalty on par with DUI vehicular homicide, which is also a strict liability offense.
On the habitual offender issue, the court held that the prior version of Colorado’s habitual offender scheme (§§ 18-1.3-801 to -804, C.R.S. (2017)) was not facially unconstitutional. Relying on its recent decision in People v. Gregg, 2025 CO 57, the court concluded the statute did not prohibit a jury from making the required factual findings; rather, it was capable of a constitutionally compliant construction. The court then held that any error in having the judge — rather than the jury — make those findings was not structural and was subject to harmless error review. Given that the People introduced certified records of six prior felony convictions spanning multiple counties and states with dates ranging from 1995 to 2008, each plainly arising from separate and distinct criminal episodes, the evidence was overwhelming and the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The court affirmed the court of appeals.
Justice Samour concurred in the judgment as to the habitual offender issue but wrote separately to express his view that Manzo should be overruled, arguing that the decision’s foundation was “brittle” from the outset and has been further eroded by subsequent developments in U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence and the elevation of LTS penalties to serious felony status.
Key Takeaways
- Colorado’s leaving-the-scene offenses (both death and serious bodily injury) remain strict liability crimes — the prosecution need not prove that a driver knew he was involved in an accident or that a death or injury resulted.
- Rehaif v. United States does not alter that analysis: it construed a statute with an express mens rea term and does not require courts to imply a culpable mental state in statutes that contain none.
- Repeated legislative amendments to the LTS statute without adding a mens rea element, combined with floor statements expressly aimed at eliminating the incentive for intoxicated drivers to flee, amount to legislative ratification of Manzo‘s strict-liability holding.
- Failure to submit habitual offender factual findings to the jury is a non-structural, constitutional harmless error subject to the constitutional harmless-error standard, not automatic reversal.
- A dissenting concurrence signals that Manzo may face renewed challenge: Justice Samour would overrule it, and his opinion offers a roadmap for future litigants.
Why It Matters
For criminal defense practitioners, Brown forecloses — for now — the argument that Rehaif requires proof of knowledge in Colorado’s hit-and-run statutes. The decision also confirms that even class 3 felonies can be strict liability offenses when the legislature’s intent to that effect is sufficiently clear, contradicting the intuition that more severe penalties necessarily imply a mens rea requirement. Attorneys handling LTS cases must advise clients that the prosecution’s burden is limited to proving the driver was in an accident, someone died or was seriously injured, and the driver left — nothing more.
More broadly, the case illustrates the continued vitality of Manzo despite its critics, while Justice Samour’s concurrence keeps the strict-liability question alive for future litigation. The court’s habitual offender analysis also reinforces that omitting jury findings on sentencing enhancements will rarely warrant reversal when the underlying evidentiary record is overwhelming — a significant point for both prosecutors relying on judicial efficiency and defense counsel seeking to preserve constitutional challenges to Colorado’s persistent-felony-offender scheme.