Appeals court orders new murder trial for teen after judge blocked self-defense evidence

Colorado’s second-highest court overturned a defendant’s murder conviction last week after concluding an Arapahoe County judge wrongly barred evidence suggesting the man acted in self-defense. There was no dispute that 18-year-old Joseph Dean McCaughin shot and killed 16-year-old Ryan Robertson in Aurora in May 2019. In the prosecution’s telling, McCaughin was jealous of Robertson, who was dating McCaughin’s ex-girlfriend. McCaughin engaged in abusive and stalking behavior, exchanged insults with Robertson and opened fire in a park near an elementary school. McCaughin asserted he acted in self-defense. At trial, McCaughin started to testify that the night before the shooting, he received a video on Snapchat, a social media platform that self-deletes messages. In the video, Robertson allegedly said, “When I see you, it’s smoke,” which McCaughin interpreted as a shooting threat. The prosecution objected that the evidence was hearsay, meaning an out-of-court statement aimed at proving the truth. The defense countered that McCaughin’s recollection of the Snapchat video was meant to illustrate whether he reasonably thought self-defense was necessary. “I’m not saying that (Robertson) actually intended to act upon these threats,” said the defense attorney. “I’m saying, for Mr. McCaughin, these are the things that are going through his head as the
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