Reyes

After a jury found Ramiro Jaime Reyes guilty of receiving stolen property, he was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. The pivotal issue is whether, under Penal Code sections 22 and 28, evidence of Reyes’s voluntary intoxication and mental disorders is admissible to refute an essential element of the crime—that he knew the property was stolen. For the reasons discussed below, we hold such evidence is admissible, and the trial court committed prejudicial error in disallowing it. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment.

Factual and Procedural Background

Reyes was charged in an information with vehicular burglary (§ 459) and receiving stolen property. (§ 496, subd. (a).) The evidence adduced at trial was as follows.

Michael Conlon and Bertha Whitford were next-door neighbors. Conlon customarily parked his work truck beside his driveway, approximately 20 to 25 feet from Whitford’s bedroom window. The truck was brightly illuminated by Conlon’s garage light. One day shortly before 2 a.m., Whitford looked out her bedroom window and saw a man leaning into the driver’s side window of Conlon’s truck. The man was slightly built, had long curly black hair and wore a white tank…