Law Enforcement Liability – More Police Reform in Colorado: House Bill 24-1372 Establishes New Restrictions and Requirements for Use of Prone Restraint

This article was written by Jonathan Abramson and Julie Nikolaevskaya of the law firm of SGR, LLC. The firm is a member of CIRSA’s defense counsel panel and provides legal services to CIRSA and its members in a wide variety of claims including law enforcement liability claims. The authors welcome any questions regarding this article and can be reached at 303.320.0509.

Editor’s Note: If your city or town is a CIRSA member, CIRSA will, as a service to its members, make available the assistance of one of its defense panel attorneys to review and comment on your draft updates to any of your policies that are prepared to address the requirements of House Bill 24-1372. CIRSA will provide up to three hours of attorney time to your entity for this assistance, at no member expense. This service is not a substitute for legal and other advice from your entity’s city or town attorney, police legal advisor, and law enforcement professionals. If your entity would like to obtain this CIRSA assistance, please call or e-mail Sam Light, CIRSA Deputy Executive Director/General Counsel, at 720-605-8002 or saml@cirsa.org.

The 2024 Colorado legislative session included an additional round of bills addressing law enforcement operations. Prominent among the bills passed is House Bill 24-1372 (also, “HB 1372” or “the Bill”), which establishes new restrictions and requirements for use of prone restraint. This article summarizes the key requirements of the Bill, which is now the law in Colorado. CIRSA member law enforcement agencies will want to ensure they are familiar with the requirements of the Bill and are taking the steps needed to ensure compliance.

Governor Polis signed HB 1372 on June 3, 2024, and the Bill became effective on the same day. The Bill added a new Subsection (2.7) to Section 18-1-707 of the Colorado Revised Statutes (“C.R.S”), which Section is entitled “Use of Force by Peace Officers – Definitions”. Section 18-1-707 sets forth legal standards for uses of physical force by peace officers, and HB 1372 added the new Subsection (2.7) to specifically address the use of prone restraint.

As codified, Subsection (2.7) defines “prone restraint” as a use of physical force, including, but not limited to, the use of a mechanical restraint, in which the person who is being restrained is in the prone position. See C.R.S. §18-1-707(2.7)(a)(III). “Prone position” is defined as a position in which a person is laying on a solid surface with the person’s chest and abdomen positioned downward even if the person’s face is turned to the side or the person has one shoulder lifted. See C.R.S. §18-1-707(2.7)(a)(II). “Mechanical restraint” is defined as a physical
device used to involuntarily restrict the movement of a person or the movement or normal function of a portion of a person’s body. See C.R.S. §18-1-707(2.7)(a)(I).

By its addition of Subsection (2.7) into the use of force statute, House Bill 24-1372 subjects a peace officer who uses unlawful force or fails to intervene in the unlawful use of force as it pertains to use of prone restraint to criminal and civil penalties as well as disciplinary measures through the Peace Officers Standards and Training Board (“P.O.S.T. Board”).

House Bill 24-1372 also includes new requirements for policies and training. Specifically, C.R.S. §18-1-707(2.7)(b) requires that on or before July 1, 2025, law enforcement agencies shall adopt written policies and procedures concerning the use of the prone position and prone restraint by 1) officers certified by the P.O.S.T. Board; 2) sheriff’s deputies, regardless of P.O.S.T. Board certification, who are engaged in patrol, arrest, taking suspects into custody, transporting detainees, or who have direct contact with inmates within county or local jails; and 3) Colorado state patrol officers. These adopted policies and procedures must be posted by law enforcement agencies on their publicly accessible websites or, if the entity does not have a publicly accessible website, make them available upon request.

In addition, under C.R.S. §18-1-707(2.7)(c), the policies and procedures must include and address 1) when and how to request or render medical aid for use of force involving prone restraint; 2) when to get medical clearance for use of force involving a prone restraint when there are injuries or complaints of injuries; 3) how and when to render appropriate medical aid within the scope of a peace officer’s training for any use of force involving prone restraint, and 4) how and when to appropriately and safely transition a person placed in a prone position into a recovery position that allows the person to breathe normally. “Recovery position” is defined as a position other than prone position that allows the person to breathe normally. See C.R.S. §18-1-707(2.7)(a)(IV).

In addition to policy adoption, HB 1372 requires law enforcement agencies to review the adopted policies and procedures at least every five years and, beginning on or before July 1, 2026, to implement and train peace officers on their contents. The P.O.S.T. Board must make its training on the use of the prone position available to all law enforcement agencies in the state.
Because in Colorado the use of prone restraint is now codified as a use of force incident, law enforcement officers must act objectively reasonable in light of facts and circumstances confronting them in each use of a prone restraint.

In light of the new requirements of HB 1372, it is recommended that CIRSA members examine their use of prone restrain policies and procedures to determine if their current policies and procedures comply with applicable law. If no such policies and procedures exist, CIRSA members must begin work on adopting such policies and procedures by July 1, 2025.

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Law Enforcement Liability – More Police Reform In Colorado: Senate Bill 23-254 Makes Significant and Immediate Changes to Search Warrant Requirements

This article was written by Eric M. Ziporin and James T. Kadolph of the law firm of SGR, LLC. The firm is a member of CIRSA’s defense counsel panel and provides legal services to CIRSA and its members in a wide variety of claims including law enforcement liability claims. The authors welcome any questions regarding this article and can be reached at 303.320.0509.

Editor’s Note: If your city or town is a CIRSA member, CIRSA will, as a service to its members, make available the assistance of one of its defense panel attorneys to review and comment on your draft updates to any of your policies that are prepared to address the requirements of Senate Bill 23-254. CIRSA will provide up to three hours of attorney time to your entity for this assistance, at no member expense. This service is not a substitute for legal and other advice from your entity’s city or town attorney, police legal advisor, and law enforcement professionals. If your entity would like to obtain this CIRSA assistance, please call or email Sam Light, CIRSA Deputy Executive Director/General Counsel, at 720-605-8002 or saml@cirsa.org.

Printable Version

Law enforcement reform continues in Colorado with each passing legislative session. Once again, reform has come to our State, likely by way of reaction to events that did not even occur in Colorado. The 2023 legislative session saw the passage of Senate Bill 23-254, which has changed the way that search warrants will be executed in Colorado.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 23-254 into law on June 6, 2023. Given that this bill was signed with a safety clause, the bill took effect immediately that day. All of the bill’s new requirements explained in this article are now the law in Colorado.

The bill makes two significant structural changes in Colorado law. First, it imposes a new requirement for an officer to obtain a “no-knock” search warrant. Second, it changes to when an officer may enter a structure without a warrant, without announcing themselves (known as a “no-knock” search warrant).

To obtain a no-knock search warrant, an officer must now show that the no-knock entry is necessary because of a credible threat to the life of any person, including the peace officers executing the warrant. This is in addition to requirements already in place prior to the enactment of Senate Bill 23-254, including that there be a specific request for the issuance of a no-knock search warrant and that the requested affidavit has been reviewed and approved for legal sufficiency and signed by a district attorney. The effect of these changes is discussed further below in this article.

Senate Bill 23-254 also modifies the manner in which search warrants for a dwelling may be executed. First, the timing of the execution for those warrants is now limited to between 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. unless a judge expressly authorizes the execution of that warrant at a different time. Second, an officer executing a warrant must either be in uniform or wearing a visible law enforcement badge and must wear and activate their body-worn camera. Third, an officer executing a warrant must clearly identify themselves as a law enforcement officer, knock at the door of the dwelling, announce their presence loudly, and delay entry for a reasonable amount of time to allow someone to come to the door (and also wait if the officer has reason to believe someone is coming to the door with the intent of voluntarily allowing the officer to enter).

The three requirements above must be followed unless one of two possible conditions are met. First, an officer may choose to not follow the three requirements above if they have a no-knock warrant. Second, an officer may ignore the above requirements if the officer (at the time of executing the warrant) learns of an emergency threatening either the life of or grave injury to a person. Importantly, that emergency cannot be created by law enforcement.

Senate Bill 23-254 has dramatically changed when “no-knock” warrants may be obtained from a judge. Previously, a no-knock warrant could be obtained to prevent the destruction of evidence if that was deemed to be likely to happen if a standard “knock and announce” warrant were to be executed. Now, the potential destruction of evidence is explicitly deemed not to be a permissible reason to execute a no-knock warrant. Instead, an officer may only apply for a no-knock warrant when the service of a knock-and-announce warrant would pose a credible threat to the life of any person. Because of this, no-knock warrants are significantly less likely to be signed by judges.

Because there will be much fewer no-knock warrants granted, the changes to the requirements for the execution of knock-and-announce warrants matter significantly more. Officers will need to be keenly aware of the timing of the execution of search warrants on residences and will need to be prepared to allow sufficient time for any resident to answer the door.

In light of this new law, it is recommended that CIRSA members examine their policies and procedures concerning the application and execution of search warrants and update them where an update may be needed to comply with the new requirements of Senate Bill 23-254. If your member agency would like the assistance of one of CIRSA’s defense panel attorneys to review and comment on your draft updates, please call or e-mail Sam Light, CIRSA Deputy Executive Director/General Counsel, at 720-605-8002 or
saml@cirsa.org.

If you have questions regarding this article, please call our Liability Hotline at 720-605-8002 to speak to CIRSA’s General Counsel, Sam Light.