Opinion
No. 03SC290.
October 3, 2005
Certiorari to the Colorado Court of Appeals, Court of Appeals Case No. 01CA0149.
JUDGMENT REVERSED AND CASE REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS.
No. 03SC290, People v. Vanrees — Jury Instructions; Culpable Mental State
The Supreme Court holds that because evidence offered to support a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity has a legally distinct purpose from evidence offered to negate a culpable mental state, evidence of a defendant's mental slowness may be offered to negate the culpable mental state for a crime charged when the defendant does not plead not guilty by reason of insanity. The Court further holds that the jury instructions in this case properly informed the jury that it could consider "any evidence, other than intoxication" in determining whether Vanrees possessed the mental state of "knowingly."
John W. Suthers, Attorney General, Matthew S. Holman, First Assistant Attorney General, Appellate Division, Criminal Justice Section, Denver, Colorado, Attorneys for Petitioner.
David S. Kaplan, Colorado State Public Defender, Andrew C. Heher, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, Attorneys for Respondent.
I. INTRODUCTION
We review the court of appeals' decision in People v. Vanrees, 80 P.3d 840 (Colo.App. 2003), which reversed Vernon Vanrees's convictions for attempted second degree murder, attempted first degree sexual assault, and first degree burglary and affirmed his conviction for second degree assault. The court of appeals held that, due to a supplemental instruction given by the trial court, the jury was precluded from considering evidence of Vanrees's mental slowness in determining whether he acted with the statutorily required mental state for the crimes charged.
The People sought certiorari review of the court of appeals' decision arguing that evidence of a defendant's mental slowness may only be considered by the jury if the defendant pleads the statutory defense of impaired mental condition — in other words, not guilty by reason of insanity. Therefore, evidence of Vanrees's mental slowness had no bearing on whether he acted with the culpable mental state when he committed the crimes charged.
Evidence offered to support a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity has a legally distinct purpose from that of evidence offered to negate a culpable mental state. Hence, we hold that, as a matter of law, evidence of mental slowness may be offered to negate the culpable mental state for a crime charged when the defendant does not plea not guilty by reason of insanity. Because evidence of Vanrees's mental slowness was offered to negate the required mental states for the crimes charged, the trial court did not err in permitting Vanrees to present such evidence.
In addition, we conclude that the trial court's supplemental instruction did not constitute error, much less reversible error. The trial court properly, and expressly, informed the jury that it could consider "any evidence, other than intoxication" in determining whether Vanrees possessed the mental state of "knowingly." Thus, the trial court's supplemental instruction permitted the jury to consider and not to preclude considering evidence of Vanrees's mental slowness to determine whether he acted "knowingly." Accordingly, reversal of Vanrees's convictions is not required.
Hence, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand this case to that court with directions to reinstate the convictions vacated by that court: attempted second degree murder, attempted first degree sexual assault, and first degree burglary.
II. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW
Vanrees was charged with attempted first degree murder, first degree assault, attempted first degree sexual assault, and first degree burglary for allegedly having assaulted a family acquaintance after breaking into her home.
Vanrees worked as an assistant manager at a fast-food restaurant. One evening when his shift ended at 5:00 p.m., he walked to a nearby bar where he drank approximately six beers and three shots of whiskey during a two to three hour period. Vanrees then left the bar, walked to a liquor store, purchased three bottles of schnapps, and consumed approximately two and one-half bottles of the schnapps before walking to a second bar. At the second bar, Vanrees drank eight to nine beers and six to seven shots of whiskey before leaving the bar at approximately 9:30 p.m.
Vanrees then walked to the home of Joan White, a sixty-six-year-old woman whom he knew. Vanrees's parents had been long-time tenants of White's parents, but Vanrees and White had not seen each other for several years. White testified that she and Vanrees had never had so much as a conversation with each other in the past and that she had never had any problems with him.
White was watching television in her bedroom when she looked up and saw a naked man standing in the doorway with a small appliance cover over his head. The man was holding a butter knife in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. When White started screaming at the man, he rushed toward her, and the two wrestled. White got the screwdriver and knife away and took the cover off of the man's head. She immediately recognized Vanrees.
When White asked Vanrees what he was doing there, he said, "I came here to kill you." The two exchanged words and then engaged in a physical struggle, during the course of which Vanrees hit White multiple times with a carpet sweeper, asked her to perform oral sex on him, pounded a screwdriver into her body multiple times, and attempted to suffocate her.
Vanrees then told White that he was going to kill himself and White asked if he would first call 911 because she was injured. Vanrees placed the call even though he had earlier told White that he had pulled the telephone wires to the house. After placing the call, Vanrees borrowed a pair of pants from White and asked her not to tell police he had been there. Before he was able to leave, ambulance personnel arrived and shortly thereafter Vanrees was arrested by the police.
Detective James Gavin testified that Vanrees smelled of alcohol and one of the firefighters who had responded to the 911 call testified that Vanrees was drunk. Two days after the incident, White told detective Gavin that Vanrees's eyes were "glazed over" and that he appeared to be "off in another world" when he was at her house. At trial, White described Vanrees's behavior during the incident as "bizarre."
Vanrees testified that he had no recollection of what had occurred between the time he went to the second bar and when he was later handcuffed by police. He stated that he was a high school graduate but that he had always taken special education classes because, according to his own admission, he was "kind of slow." No mental health expert testimony or other evidence concerning Vanrees's mental slowness was presented.
In closing, defense counsel argued that Vanrees's voluntary intoxication, coupled with his mental slowness, caused him to behave in such a "disorganized, bizarre, and strange" fashion that he necessarily could not have acted with the specific intent or deliberation to commit the crimes charged. Defense counsel stated: "What you've heard and seen is a picture of someone who has something very wrong with him. Whose problems combined with alcohol led to Joan White's night of terror. . . . [I]t is the combination of what is going on in his mind and how alcohol has affected him . . . [I]ntoxication made it so that Mr. Vanrees did not have the ability to have specific intent and deliberation" (emphasis added). She argued that the bizarre nature of Vanrees's behavior was "evidence of the fact that [he did not act] with intent or deliberation" and she asked the jury to "convict [Vanrees] of the lesser offenses."
During jury deliberations, the jury submitted a question to the trial judge which read:
Almost every count includes the term "knowingly." Can mental capacity, "slowness" of an individual, or potential insanity be part of the knowingly definition.
Please provide us a better definition of knowingly.
After consulting with counsel for both parties, the trial judge provided the following written response to the question:
The defendant has not entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Thus, whether the defendant suffered from a severely abnormal mental condition caused by mental disease or defect that grossly and demonstrably impaired his perception or understanding of reality is not an issue for your consideration.
You will not receive any additional instruction regarding the culpable mental state "knowingly," other than that contained in Instructions Nos. 17 and 18.
Instruction 17 provided definitions of the relevant culpable mental states. With respect to "knowingly," it stated:
A person acts "knowingly" with respect to conduct or to a circumstance described by a statute defining an offense when he is aware that his conduct is of such nature or that such circumstance exists. A person acts "knowingly" with respect to a result of his conduct when he is aware that his conduct is practically certain to cause the result.
Instruction 18 provided:
Evidence of intoxication should be considered by you in determining whether the prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt the mental states of "with intent" and "after deliberation and with intent."
"Intoxication" as used in this instruction means a disturbance of mental or physical capacities resulting from the introduction of any substance into the body.
Evidence of intoxication should not be considered by you in determining whether the prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt the mental state of "knowingly."
Instruction 17 provided definitions of the relevant culpable mental states. With respect to "knowingly," it stated:
A person acts "knowingly" with respect to conduct or to a circumstance described by a statute defining an offense when he is aware that his conduct is of such nature or that such circumstance exists. A person acts "knowingly" with respect to a result of his conduct when he is aware that his conduct is practically certain to cause the result.
Instruction 18 provided:
Evidence of intoxication should be considered by you in determining whether the prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt the mental states of "with intent" and "after deliberation and with intent."
"Intoxication" as used in this instruction means a disturbance of mental or physical capacities resulting from the introduction of any substance into the body.
Evidence of intoxication should not be considered by you in determining whether the prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt the mental state of "knowingly."
In determining whether or not the element of "knowingly" has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, you may consider any evidence, other than intoxication, presented in this case, or lack of evidence, that you believe to bear on that element.
You are reminded that you must consider the instructions as a whole.
The jury convicted Vanrees of attempted second degree murder, second degree assault, attempted first degree sexual assault, and first degree burglary.
On appeal, Vanrees asserted that the trial court's supplemental instruction erroneously prevented the jury from considering evidence of his "mental slowness" to determine whether the prosecution had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he possessed the required culpable mental state of "knowingly." The court of appeals agreed with Vanrees, concluding that the instruction "did not inform the jury that it could consider evidence of [the] defendant's `mental slowness' and capacity in assessing whether he knowingly committed the crimes charged, but instead simply referred the jury to some original instructions." Vanrees, 80 P.3d at 843. That court ruled that by giving the definition of insanity without naming it as such, the instruction could have improperly led the jury to conclude that evidence of Vanrees's mental slowness "was not an issue" for its consideration because the jury could have interpreted "mental slowness" as constituting an "abnormal mental condition" within the definition of insanity provided in the supplemental instruction. Id. at 843-44. Consequently, the court concluded that the instruction constituted reversible error because it allowed the jury to convict Vanrees "without necessarily finding beyond a reasonable doubt that he was aware that his conduct was practically certain to cause the proscribed results," id. at 844, and, in so doing, unconstitutionally lowered the prosecution's burden of proof. Accordingly, the court of appeals reversed these convictions which required the culpable mental state of "knowingly," i.e., attempted second degree murder, attempted first degree sexual assault, and first degree burglary, and remanded the case for a new trial. The court affirmed Vanrees's conviction for second degree assault because it required a mens rea of specific intent. Id.
We granted the People's petition for certiorari to review the judgment of the court of appeals and now reverse and remand for reinstatement of his convictions.
We granted certiorari on the following issues:
(1) Whether the court of appeals erred in holding that the trial court's supplemental instruction improperly excluded evidence of defendant's "mental slowness."
(2) Whether a defendant who fails to plead the statutory affirmative defense of impaired mental condition is entitled to introduce evidence of "mental slowness" to negate the culpable mental state for a criminal charge.
III. ANALYSIS
Vanrees did not dispute that he committed the acts. Instead, his primary defense was to argue that he lacked the required culpable mental state of specific intent. He argued that his consumption of a large quantity of alcohol, combined with his mental slowness, caused him to behave in a bizarre fashion that showed he did not act with the required mental state necessary to commit the specific intent crimes that were charged. On appeal to this Court, the prosecution argues that Vanrees was not entitled to present any evidence of his mental slowness because he did not enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. We disagree and hold that our statutes concerning insanity and our case law permit the admission of mental slowness evidence where such evidence is offered to negate the culpable mental state of the crime charged.
The prosecution states that Vanrees failed to "plead the defense of impaired mental condition." While there is an impaired mental condition aspect of insanity, the General Assembly, in 1995, incorporated the affirmative defense of impaired mental condition into the insanity defense. See § 16-8-101.3, C.R.S. (2004). We will therefore refer to the plea as one of "not guilty by reason of insanity." We note that this Court improperly framed the issue upon which certiorari was granted in referring to the "statutory affirmative defense of impaired mental condition." Both parties, however, expressly recognized in their briefs that impaired mental condition has been incorporated into the insanity statute.
A. An Accused Has a Constitutional Right to Present Evidence to Negate the Required Culpable Mental State of the Crime Charged
It is well established that, except with respect to specific strict liability crimes, the prosecution must prove not only that the defendant committed the proscribed act but that the accused acted with the culpable mental state required for the crime charged.People v. Hall, 999 P.2d 207, 216 (Colo. 2000);Hendershott v. People, 653 P.2d 385, 390 (Colo. 1982) (there generally must be the "concurrence of an unlawful act (actus reus) and a culpable mental state (mens rea)"). Because the culpable mental state is an essential element of a crime, a defendant's right to due process requires that the prosecution prove his or her mental culpability beyond a reasonable doubt. U.S. Const. amends. VI, XIV; Colo. Const. art. II, §§ 16, 25;In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 361-62, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1071-72, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970); People v. Cornelison, 192 Colo. 337, 341, 559 P.2d 1102, 1105 (1977). See also Hendershott, 653 P.2d at 390 (holding that "[i]t is axiomatic that an accused is presumed innocent of the charge, and this presumption extends to every element of the crime including the requisite mens rea.").
While the prosecution is required to prove a defendant's mental culpability beyond a reasonable doubt, we have long held that it is a violation of due process to prohibit a defendant from presenting evidence to contest the mens rea element of a crime charged. InPeople v. Cornelison, we quoted, with approval, the following language of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania: "It would clearly be an anomaly to suggest that . . . the [state] must establish the existence of a mental state beyond a reasonable doubt, . . . yet preclude the defendant from producing relevant evidence to contest the issue." 192 Colo. at 341, 559 P.2d at 1105 (quoting Commonwealth v. Graves, 334 A.2d 661 (Pa. 1975), superseded by statute/rule).
Similarly, in Hendershott v. People, we held that prohibiting a defendant from contesting, or disproving, the mental culpability of a crime charged would create an "impermissible presumption of culpability" which would unconstitutionally "render the prosecution's evidence on that issue uncontestable as a matter of law" and thus lower the prosecution's burden of proof on the issue of mental culpability. 653 P.2d at 391. A lowering of the prosecution's burden of proof results where the defendant is precluded from presenting evidence to disprove the mens rea element of a charged crime because "[a] reasonable doubt as to guilt may arise not only from the prosecution's case, but also from defense evidence casting doubt upon what previously may have appeared certain." Id. at 393.
By legislative proscription, certain evidence may not be offered to negate the required culpable mental state. For example, the General Assembly has provided that evidence of voluntary intoxication may be offered to negate the culpable mental state only where the required mens rea is that of specific intent. See § 18-1-804(1), C.R.S. (2004).
B. Evidence Offered to Negate Mental Culpability Has a Legally Separate and Distinct Purpose from Evidence Offered in Support of an Insanity Plea
Although a defendant has a constitutional right to offer evidence to contest the culpable mental state of a crime charged, the accused is not allowed to present evidence in support of an affirmative defense when such defense has not been raised in accordance with the applicable statutory requirements for raising that defense. People v. Low, 732 P.2d 622, 632 (Colo. 1987). It is within the General Assembly's authority to formulate statutory affirmative defenses, or defenses based on principles of justification or excuse, and to place appropriate limitations on the assertion of those defenses. See Hendershott, 653 P.2d at 391; see also Low, 732 P.2d at 627.
The General Assembly has expressly defined the defense of insanity as an affirmative defense. § 18-1-805, C.R.S. (2004). A legally insane person is defined either as one "who is so diseased or defective in mind at the time of the commission of the act as to be incapable of distinguishing right from wrong with respect to that act." § 16-8-101.5(1)(a), C.R.S. (2004). Or, alternatively, as one "who suffered from a condition of mind caused by mental disease or defect that prevented the person form forming a culpable mental state that is an essential element of a crime charged." § 16-8-101.5(1)(b), C.R.S. (2005). The latter definition of insanity is referred to as the "impaired mental condition" aspect of the defense.
As noted, the General Assembly, in 1995, incorporated the affirmative defense of impaired mental condition into the defense of insanity. § 16-8-101.3, C.R.S. (2005).
There are specific statutory pleading rules for asserting the defense of insanity. The defense may be raised only by entering a specific plea of "[n]ot guilty by reason of insanity." § 16-8-103(1)(a), C.R.S. (2005). Such a plea must be entered either at the time of arraignment or, for good cause shown, at any time prior to trial. Id.
The prosecution argues that evidence of a defendant's mental slowness may not be presented at trial where the defendant fails to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. However, evidence offered in support of a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity has a legally distinct purpose from that of evidence offered to negate a culpable mental state. To explain this distinction, we find it instructive to highlight the differences in the legal requirements and ramifications of entering a plea of insanity as opposed to contesting the culpable mental state of a crime charged.
A plea of insanity is analogous to the common law plea of "confession and avoidance" because a defendant who successfully asserts such a plea admits the commission of the crime but avoids, or excuses, any criminal responsibility for that crime because he or she was insane at the time the offense was committed. Low, 732 P.2d at 629-30. A person found to be legally insane is thus "absolved of responsibility for all crimes" including those that do, and those that do not, require proof of a culpable mental state. Id. A person is legally insane if a mental disease or defect makes the defendant "incapable of distinguishing right from wrong," § 16-8-101.5(1)(a), or prevents the defendant from "forming a culpable mental state." § 16-8-101.5(1)(b). Thus, the defense of insanity concerns a defendant's capacity, or ability, to form any culpable mental state in the first instance. Evidence offered in support of such a plea is directed to whether the defendant possessed that capacity or ability. Because it is the defendant's mental capacity which is at issue, as opposed to whether the defendant in fact possessed a particular mental state at the time of an offense, a defendant who enters an insanity plea is required to undergo a mental health examination to determine the extent of his or her mental capacity. See § 16-8-105.5(1), C.R.S. (2005).
On the other hand, evidence offered to negate a required culpable mental state may establish whether the defendant in fact possessed the mental state of the crime charged at the time the act was committed. For example, the evidence may establish whether the defendant acted negligently rather than intentionally, and not whether he lacked the capacity to formulate the culpable mental state in the first instance. Unlike an insanity plea, a defendant who presents evidence to negate mental culpability does not admit the commission of the crime at issue because, with the exception of strict liability crimes, criminal liability requires both an unlawful act and a culpable mental state. By successfully contesting the required mental culpability, the defendant thus refutes criminal liability for the crime charged. Hendershott, 653 P.2d at 390.
To summarize, where the defendant is charged with multiple crimes with multiple culpable mental states, the prosecution must present evidence specific to the defendant's mental culpability required for each crime. If the defendant is found to be legally insane, he is absolved of responsibility for all criminal acts. However, where the defendant presents evidence to negate the culpable mental state of the crime charged, this evidence does not necessarily absolve him of criminal responsibility. Rather, the jury may consider this evidence in determining whether the defendant committed a crime included within the crime charged. See Low, 732 P.2d at 630.
We therefore hold that evidence offered to support a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity has a legally distinct purpose from evidence offered to negate a culpable mental state. Evidence offered to negate the culpable mental state is directed to disproving an essential element of the crime charged, as opposed to being offered to establish that the defendant was mentally incapable of formulating the required mental state in the first instance.
C. As a Matter of Law, Evidence of Mental Slowness May Be Offered to Negate Mental Culpability Without Entry of an Insanity Plea
The test for insanity requires that the defendant have suffered from a "mental disease or defect," which is defined as "those severely abnormal mental conditions that grossly and demonstrably impair a person's perception or understanding of reality." § 16-8-102(4.7), C.R.S. (2005). A court-ordered mental health examination is automatically triggered by the entry of an insanity plea because the burden is on the People to prove a defendant's sanity beyond a reasonable doubt. See § 16-8-105.5, C.R.S. (2005). A mental health examination provides the prosecution with an opportunity to obtain, and then present at trial, evidence pertaining to the defendant's mental health.
We have held that any evidence, with the exception of certain statutorily-proscribed evidence, may be offered to negate mental culpability. Evidence of mental slowness is an example of evidence which may be offered for such purpose.
There is no statutory proscription against offering evidence of mental slowness to negate mental culpability. There is nothing within Colorado's statutory insanity framework indicating that our General Assembly intended to create an "all or nothing" insanity defense. But see Carpenter, 627 N.W.2d 276, 283 (Mich. 2001) (noting that Michigan legislature created "all or nothing" insanity defense). As we have held, there is a legal distinction between offering evidence to excuse a criminal act, i.e., to support an insanity defense, and offering evidence to negate the required culpable mental state. Where evidence of mental impairment is not offered to excuse or to justify criminal conduct and where no claim is made that the defendant's mental slowness constitutes a "mental disease or defect" within the definition of that term as provided in the statutes concerning insanity, evidence of mental impairment may be offered to negate mental culpability. See 1 Wayne R. LaFave Austin W. Scott, Jr., Substantive Criminal Law § 4.7, at 530 (1986) ("The reception of evidence of the defendant's abnormal mental condition, totally apart from the defense of insanity, is certainly appropriate whenever that evidence is relevant to the issue of whether he had the mental state which is a necessary element of the crime charged."). There is no basis, statutory or otherwise, to bar evidence of a mental impairment short of insanity when such evidence is offered to negate a required element of the crime charged.
Allowing evidence of mental slowness to negate mental culpability is consistent with our prior cases recognizing that a defendant has a due process right to present evidence to contest the required culpable mental state. See, e.g., Cornelison, 192 Colo. at 341, 559 P.2d at 1105. It is also consistent with our precedent permitting mental impairment evidence to contest mental culpability. For example, in Hendershott, we specifically held that "precluding an accused from offering mental impairment evidence to negate culpability undermines the constitutional protection against conviction `except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.'" 653 P.2d at 393 (quoting In re Winship, 397 U.S. at 364, 90 S.Ct. at 1073).
In Low, we noted, with approval, that Hendershott overruled those prior cases which had held that evidence of "mental `derangement' short of insanity" was not admissible to contest the element of mental culpability. Low, 732 P.2d at 631 n. 11.
Similarly, our court of appeals in People v. Requejo, 919 P.2d 874 (Colo.App. 1996), cert. denied (Oct. 15, 1996), held that evidence of mental impairment was admissible to negate the culpable mental state despite the defendant's failure to assert the affirmative defense of impaired mental condition. The court held that evidence that the defendant was a "slow thinker" could be admitted at trial where such evidence was not offered to show that the defendant was unable to formulate the required culpable mental state but, rather, was offered to show the defendant did not possess the required culpable mental state at the time of the commission of the crime. The court explained: "[The] defendant did not claim that he was unable to form the mens rea for the crimes charged against him. The evidence was not offered to show that defendant did not have the ability to understand that his friend had a knife. . . . The expert's description and explanation of [the] defendant's condition of mind — that is, that he was a slow thinker, unable to focus on more than one thing at a time — was offered simply to explain the defense's assertion that, under the particular circumstances here, [the] defendant did not notice that his friend had . . . a knife." 919 P.2d at 878 (emphasis added).
Accordingly, we hold that, as a matter of law, evidence of mental slowness may be offered to negate the culpable mental state for the crime charged.
IV. APPLICATION
Applying the principles discussed, we conclude that the trial court did not err in permitting Vanrees to present evidence of his mental slowness even though he did not enter an insanity plea. In addition, we determine that the trial court's supplemental instruction to the jury did not constitute error, much less reversible error.
Our review of the record reveals that Vanrees offered evidence of his mental slowness to negate the culpable mental states of the crimes with which he was charged. Vanrees's primary defense was that of voluntary intoxication which is a defense only to specific intent crimes. Low, 732 P.2d at 628. Defense counsel argued primarily that Vanrees did not have the specific intent or deliberation to be guilty of the crimes charged which required the culpable mental state of specific intent.
Vanrees testified that he had taken special education classes throughout the course of his schooling and admitted that he was "kind of slow." However, the defense did not introduce expert mental health testimony, or present any other evidence, to support a claim that Vanrees's mental slowness constituted a "mental disease or defect," as that term is defined within the statutes concerning insanity. Defense counsel neither asserted that Vanrees suffered from a "mental disease or defect" nor otherwise claimed that his mental slowness constituted a "severely abnormal mental condition." While defense counsel argued consistently with the terms of Colorado's statutory affirmative defense of voluntary intoxication, that "[i]ntoxication made it so that Mr. Vanrees did not have the ability to have specific intent and deliberation" (emphasis added), Vanrees never argued that his mental slowness made him incapable of distinguishing right from wrong. In addition, defense counsel did not claim that Vanrees's mental slowness excused, or justified, his conduct. To the contrary, defense counsel argued that Vanrees was criminally responsible for the lesser-included crimes of those with which he was charged and asked the jury to convict him of those lesser offenses. See Low, 732 P.2d at 630 (allowing evidence of mental impairment not to absolve defendant of responsibility but to lower the grade of the crime charged). Based on our holding that evidence of mental slowness may be presented for the purpose of negating a culpable mental state, we conclude that the trial court correctly permitted Vanrees to present, and make arguments with respect to, evidence of his mental slowness to negate the culpable mental states of the crimes with which he was charged. Hence, we hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by allowing this evidence to be admitted.
This is not to say that evidence of Vanrees's mental slowness could not be taken together with evidence of his voluntary intoxication to negate the required culpable mental state of specific intent.
While Vanrees's counsel argued in closing that his mental slowness established that he was not capable of "making up" an intoxication defense or of "switching tactics" in the middle of the incident, counsel did not use the evidence for the purpose of showing that Vanrees was incapable of formulating the culpable mental state of the crimes charged.
In response to the jury's question regarding whether evidence of Vanrees's "mental slowness" could be used to determine whether he acted "knowingly," the trial court provided the following supplemental instruction:
The defendant has not entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Thus, whether the defendant suffered from a severely abnormal mental condition caused by mental disease or defect that grossly and demonstrably impaired his perception or understanding of reality is not an issue for your consideration.
You will not receive any additional instruction regarding the culpable mental state "knowingly," other than that contained in Instructions Nos. 17 and 18.
In determining whether or not the element of "knowingly" has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, you may consider any evidence, other than intoxication, presented in this case, or lack of evidence, that you believe to bear on that element.
You are reminded that you must consider the instructions as a whole.
(Emphasis added.)
The court of appeals concluded that the jury could have believed that "mental slowness" constituted an "abnormal mental condition" and thus could have read the first paragraph of the supplemental instruction as precluding it from considering evidence of Vanrees's mental slowness in determining whether he acted knowingly. Vanrees, 80 P.3d at 850. While we recognize that such a reading of the first paragraph of the instruction is possible, the court's definition of insanity in that paragraph was technically correct. Further, we cannot look at this paragraph in isolation. Jury instructions must be read as a whole, and if, when so read, they adequately inform the jury of the law, there is no reversible error. People v. Harlan, 8 P.3d 448, 472 (Colo. 2000). Thus, one instruction may cure a possible ambiguity created by another instruction. See People v. Garcia, 28 P.3d 340, 345 n. 3 (Colo. 2001). Analogously, we may presume that one section of an instruction may cure ambiguity created by another section within that same instruction.
With these principles in mind, we note that the third paragraph of the supplemental instruction expressly provided that the jury could consider "any evidence, other than intoxication, presented in this case, or lack of evidence," (emphasis added), in determining whether Vanrees acted "knowingly." Because the jury was instructed that it could consider "any evidence," we conclude that paragraph three of the supplemental instruction cured any ambiguity created by the trial court's explanation of insanity in paragraph one. In addition, the supplemental instruction properly referred the jury to the definition of "knowingly" provided in the court's original instructions. Instruction 17 properly defined "knowingly," and, because it required that the defendant be "aware" of his conduct or of the result of his conduct, a reasonable jury could necessarily have understood that it was to consider the defendant's "mental slowness" in determining the degree of his mental awareness. Hence, we conclude that there was no error, much less reversible error, in the trial court's supplemental instruction.
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand this case to that court with directions to reinstate those judgments of conviction which were vacated by its decision: attempted second degree murder, attempted first degree sexual assault, and first degree burglary.
V. CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.