Colorado v. Robert Pasqual Serravo

Facts

On the evening of May 9, 1987, the defendant, who was a King Soopers union employee, visited striking employees at the King Soopers store near his home. He returned home at approximately 12:30 a.m. on May 10. After sitting in the kitchen and reading the Bible, he went upstairs to the bedroom where his wife was sleeping, stood over her for a few minutes, and then stabbed her in the back just below the shoulder blade. When his wife awoke, the defendant told her that she had been stabbed by an intruder and that she should stay in bed while he went downstairs to call for medical help. Later, his wife found letters in which the defendant admitted that he was the one who stabbed her.

At trial, a doctor testified that the defendant gave the doctor a history of having worked on a plan, inspired by his relationship to God, to establish a multi-million dollar sports complex called Purely Professionals. This facility, according to the defendant, would enable him to achieve his goal of teaching people the path to perfection. On the night of the stabbing, defendant was excited because he finally believed that he had received some positive encouragement in his endeavor from some King Soopers union members, but he was discouraged by some inner “evil spirits” who kept raising troublesome questions about how he would deal with his wife’s lack of encouragement and support. Another doctor testified that the defendant was under the psychotic delusion that it was his divine mission to kill his wife and that he was morally justified in stabbing her because God had told him to do so.

At the conclusion of the evidence, the trial court instructed the jury, in accordance with the statutory definition of insanity, that a person “is not accountable 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 the act.” The jury returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.