## Facts

- Robert Eugene Low, a trucking company president, traveled overnight from Missouri to a hunting trip in Creede, Colorado, with his fourteen-year-old stepson and others.
- During the trip and upon arrival, Low displayed paranoid and delusional behavior, including claims of being dead and in hell and identifying companions as religious or demonic figures.
- At the campsite, Low obtained a knife and stabbed a companion in the upper back; he also attempted self-harm, was disarmed, and later set fire to a tent after pouring kerosene inside.
- Evidence showed Low had been consuming large quantities of cough drops for months and ingested roughly 120 within about 24 hours without sleep.
- A psychiatrist opined Low suffered a toxic psychosis from the ingestion and was incapable of forming specific or general criminal intent at the time.
- Low was charged with first-degree assault and lesser included offenses; he pleaded not guilty, expressly waived insanity and impaired mental condition defenses, and asserted involuntary intoxication.

## Issues

1. Whether a court may consider chemically induced insanity or impaired mental condition evidence to negate mens rea when the defendant did not enter the statutorily required special plea for insanity or impaired mental condition.
2. Whether pleading involuntary intoxication permits admission and use of insanity-type psychiatric testimony to defeat proof of intent without compliance with statutory insanity procedures.
3. What relief is available on the prosecution’s appeal from a bench-trial acquittal where jeopardy attached.

## Decision

- The Colorado Supreme Court held the trial court erred as a matter of law by considering insanity-type psychiatric evidence to negate intent where the defendant did not comply with statutory pleading requirements for insanity or impaired mental condition.
- The court held involuntary intoxication does not allow a defendant to bypass the statutory framework governing insanity and impaired mental condition.
- Because the defendant was acquitted after jeopardy attached, double jeopardy barred reversal or retrial; the court only disapproved the trial court’s legal reasoning and left the acquittal intact.

## Legal Principles

- Colorado requires compliance with statutory special-plea procedures to raise insanity or impaired mental condition; a defendant cannot obtain the functional benefit of those defenses without the required plea.
- Expert testimony characterizing a defendant as temporarily insane or psychotic, including chemically induced conditions, is treated as insanity/impaired-mental-condition evidence for purposes of those pleading rules when used to defeat mens rea.
- The affirmative defense of involuntary intoxication is distinct from statutory insanity defenses and cannot be used as a substitute route to introduce insanity-type proof aimed at negating intent.
- After a bench-trial acquittal, appellate review cannot disturb the judgment because jeopardy attaches when the first witness is sworn; the available remedy is limited to disapproval of erroneous legal rulings for future guidance.

## Conclusion

The court held that insanity-type mental condition evidence, even when chemically induced, may not be used to negate criminal intent unless the defendant satisfies Colorado’s statutory pleading requirements for insanity or impaired mental condition; because the defendant had been acquitted after jeopardy attached, the court could only disapprove the trial court’s reasoning and could not reverse the acquittal.


People v. Low, 732 P.2d 622 (Colo. 1987)