People v. Vanrees

BENDER, Justice.

I. INTRODUCTION

We review the court of appeals’ decision in People v. Vanrees, 80 P.3d 840 (Colo.App.2003), which held that a criminal defendant need not comply with the pleading requirements of the insanity statute in order to introduce evidence of his mental slowness to contest the culpable mental element of the crime charged. In addition, that court reversed Vanrees’s convictions for the crimes requiring the culpable mental state of “knowingly,” reasoning that the trial court’s instruction given during jury deliberation wrongfully precluded the jury from considering evidence…