[Download] "People V. Serravo" by Colorado Supreme Court * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

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eBook details

• Title: People V. Serravo
• Author : Colorado Supreme Court
• Release Date : January 13, 1992
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 77 KB

Description

We granted certiorari to review the decision of the court of appeals in People v. Serravo, 797 P.2d 782 (Colo. App. 1990), in order to determine the meaning of the phrase "incapable of distinguishing right from wrong" in Colorado's statutory definition of insanity codified at section 16-8-101(1), 8A C.R.S. (1986). The trial court, in the insanity phase of a criminal prosecution, instructed the jury that the phrase "incapable of distinguishing right from wrong" refers to a person who appreciates that his conduct is criminal but, due to a mental disease or defect, believes that the conduct is morally right. The prosecution, pursuant to section 16-12-102(1), 8A C.R.S. (1986), appealed the trial court's ruling on  the question of law, and the court of appeals approved the ruling. The court of appeals held that the meaning of "incapable of distinguishing right from wrong" is not confined to a defendant's knowledge of legal right or legal wrong but rather refers to a defendant's cognitive inability to distinguish right from wrong under societal standards of morality, and that the trial court's instruction did not inject a subjective standard of morality into the test of legal insanity. Id. at 783. The court of appeals also held that a deific-decree delusion is an exception to the societal standard of moral wrong and that, under such an exception, a defendant may be adjudicated insane if the defendant knew that the act was illegal and morally wrong under societal standards of morality but, due to a mental disease or defect, believed that God had ordained the act.

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