By Chris Vanderveen
9 News
STERLING — In a legal first, a Colorado prisoner has successfully used the state’s Make My Day Law to defend himself in a prison killing. The inmate prosecutors say he killed was stabbed 90 times.
Prosecutors had charged Antero Alaniz with murder in the 2011 death of inmate Cleveland Flood inside the Sterling Correctional Facility, but in December 2014, a judge quietly dismissed the case against Alaniz citing the state’s “Make my Day Law.”
The law, passed by the Colorado legislature in 1985, allows any “occupant of a dwelling” to use “any degree of physical force” against someone who has broken into the home and poses a threat - no matter how slight - to the home’s residents.
Full story: Bloody prison stabbing falls under ‘Make My Day Law’