Auman v. People

In the early months of 2001, well-known journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson received several letters from the Colorado State Penitentiary; those letters continued for months and described the plight of a Colorado woman who was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a murder she did not herself commit. Moved by her story, in June 2004, Thompson published a number of pieces that highlighted the story of this Colorado woman who was convicted of murder despite being handcuffed in the back of a police car when one of the arresting officers was shot and killed by one of her accomplices; this woman was Lisl Auman.

Thompson's articles and the publicity they engendered led stars like Warren Zevon, Johnny Depp, Jack Nicholson, Benicio del Toro and Woody Harrelson to call for her release. Ultimately, Auman served seven years in a Colorado State Penitentiary before her conviction was overturned by the Colorado Supreme Court in March 2005. The Colorado Supreme Court threw out her felony murder and burglary convictions, stating the trial judge left out the word “knowingly” when instructing the jury regarding the elements of second-degree burglary. Auman subsequently agreed to a plea bargain to avoid a retrial. She was released to Community Corrections where she lived in a halfway house for about nine months and then eventually returned to the Auman family home in 2006. Although perhaps her greatest champions, Thompson never saw Auman’s release; he passed away in 2005.

This case provides the outlines of the felony murder and, though it overturns her conviction on other grounds, it ultimately approves its application, even on the shocking facts of this case.