www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,51403,00.html

DENVER — A foot can become a deadly weapon, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday, overturning a lower court's decision.


"Objects which are not inherently deadly, such as feet and hands, can become deadly weapons when used to start an unbroken, foreseeable chain of events capable of producing serious bodily injury or death," the Supreme Court said Monday.

The ruling came in the case of Cristopher Saleh, who was convicted of reckless assault with a deadly weapon for kicking his girlfriend, Janise Apodaca, down a flight of stairs in 1998. She suffered a broken wrist, a sprained ankle and a fractured pelvis and was hospitalized for six weeks.

An appeals court overturned the conviction and ruled it was third-degree assault, reasoning that the foot must be the instrument that caused the serious bodily injury in order to qualify as a deadly weapon.

The Supreme Court said Colorado law defines a deadly weapon as a firearm (loaded or unloaded), a knife, a bludgeon or "any other weapon, device, instrument, material, or substance, whether animate or inanimate."

The Supreme Court said that it ruled in a 1980 case that a whiskey bottle could be a deadly weapon, and in 1970 the law applied to a shoe.

"Body parts can be deadly weapons depending upon the manner in which they are used," the court said.

I've filed charges like this before-"manner of use" is the key.

A martial arts "expert" beats his wife repeatedly, causinginternal injuries. Did he use his hands and feet as deadly weapons? The examining doctor thought he did. So did the judge and the DA. Same thing with biting an appendage off someones body, breaking bones or causing lacerations requiring major reconstruction. Case law around here generally says that if it needs more than six stiches, it became "serious" bodily injury.

If the use of an object, including what the UCR stats classify as "personal weapons" (hands, feet, teeth and so on) results in serious bodily injury, it is a deadly weapon.

I wonder what the ruling would have been had he bumped her off balance at the top of the stairs with his ass.

"The Gluteous Maximus can be a deadly weapon if wielded in an reckless manner with intent to injure.. blah blah blah"

So...An overly obese person jumps on you,cracking several ribs, and you need to stay in the hospital, they themselves becoma a "deadly weapon"??
Makes martial arts kinda usless!!

Does this mean that I need a CCW to wear shoes?

So, do the serial numbers go on our shoes or our feet?  If they are on our feet do he have to have some kind of permit to conceal them in shoes?

Quoted: Does this mean that I need a CCW to wear shoes?

Of course.  I wonder if their will be a safety class and training requirement?

Quoted: So, do the serial numbers go on our shoes or our feet?  If they are on our feet do he have to have some kind of permit to conceal them in shoes?

On the feet, definitely.  I wonder if it can be engraved, or does it have to be stamped in?

Confiscation will be interesting

Quoted: Does this mean that I need a CCW to wear shoes?

This is plainly an open carry issue.

The precedent having been set, I think that steel toed shoes/boots should now be added to the list of banned or soon to be banned assault weapons. More to follow.......

At LFI they teach one of the condtions for use of deadly force is that the assailant have the ability to cause "death or grave bodily injury".

I'd say that someone, even without martial arts training, (depending on circumstances) using their foot as a weapon meets that requirement.

That is generally the law (in some form or other) in all 50 states and it's been that way for quite some time.  I don't see a problem with it.  

If I'm trying to kick you, you can bet my intent is to inflict "death or grave bodily injury" and my foot should be considered a deadly weapon.

If you try to kick me, my assuption will be your intent is to inflict death or grave bodily injury and I would be justified in using deadly force to stop that from happening.

I don't have the stats handy, but as I recall the single most commonly used murder weapon is the human body.  Blunt trauma from hits and kicks, asphyxiation from strangling, etc.

Second place is blunt objects like frying pans, baseball bats, pipes, etc.

Third is stabbing/slashing with knives, broken bottles, etc.

Firearms in fourth.

That would all be according to the FBI's statistical data.