An attempted purse snatching of an 81-year-old women in a elevator would appear a rather everyday crime at a casino in Connecticut. However, the lawyer for Winston A. Riley, 27, says that his client lacked the requisite intent because he was sleepwalking when he allegedly brandished the knife and tried to pull away her purse at the Mohegan Sun casino.
In Riley’s favor, he appears to have a clean record. His counsel says that he can prove a history of sleepwalking and a valid “medical defense.”
He says that Riley had slept in his car on the morning of the incident and woke up in the elevator in the midst of the attempted robbery. Police say that he confessed to the crime and told them that “He just wanted some money. When she fought back, he became scared and ran away.”
Assuming that counsel can establish the defense, it would create a bit of a problem since he could presumably rob people in his sleep while claiming a defense when he was awake. Presumably, when he woke up with purses in his bed, he would realize that he had been on the prowl.
The reaction of a court or a jury to such a defense would be predictably skeptical if not hostile. They may ask why he does not dream that he is working in a homeless shelter or helping old ladies across the street. A plea and sleep-disorder treatment might be the best approach in this case.
Source: Norwichas first seen on ABA Journal
Thank you LK…
Idealist- Thinking is hard. I’d rather write mindless, sympathetic seeming comments than anything of substance. It was more a rhetorical question, anyway. “:p”
It seems like it’s wacky criminal defense day. First a guy claims he sleepwalked through a robbery, and now a woman’s suicide attempt could be charged as a murder: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2012/06/01/womans-suicide-attempt-leads-murder-charge/
AY, You’re right, apparently several drugs and possibly organic disorders can cause or contribute to sleepwalking. From Wikipedia:
“Psychological disorders and drug useIn some cases, sleepwalking in adults may be a symptom of a psychological disorder or of drug use. One study, A.H.Crisp and colleagues, of St. George’s Hospital Medical School in London, suggests higher levels of dissociation in adult sleepwalkers, since test subjects scored unusually high on the hysteria portion of the “Crown-Crisp Experiential Index”.[20] J.E.Orme, of the Psychology Department at Middlewood Hospital, Sheffield has suggested that “A higher incidence [of sleepwalking events] has been reported in patients with schizophrenia, hysteria and anxiety neuroses.”.[21] Also, patients with migraine headaches or Tourette Syndrome are 4–6 times more likely to sleepwalk. Some medications that may increase sleepwalking include: chlorpromazine (Thorazine), perphenazine (Trilafon), lithium, benzodiazepine (Triazolam), amitriptyline (Elavel, Endep), zolpidem (Ambien) and beta blockers.[4]”
I wonder if he was taking ambien…… That is one of the side effects….. Could be plausible…..
And if you don’t want to think, activate your cynicism gene and play “I’m no sucker” on your cellphone.
CLH,
Think, it is not only IBM’s motto, it should be yours.
How many ZimmermanYmartin cases can dance on a media spin?
And how many will our gov media spin dept permit to dance?
One is more than enough.
Besides, when it is more than one it is no longer poster children that papas can root for. Tehy quicly become statistics and who has a warm feeling over them?
What in the hell? That is a case where the mother should be able to sue the PD (She won’t win, I’m just wishing on a star here) and a blatant case of racial profiling by the police. Funny how no one ran with this story the way they ran with the Zimmerman case.
Worse part of this case: “Spooner shot Simmons with a 9mm handgun five feet away from him in the chest, in front of his mother.
Darius was shot once in the chest with his hands raised. He ran to escape and collapsed at the corner, while Spooner attempted to shoot him in the back, and tried to fire a third shot.
After police arrived, Darius’s body remained on the sidewalk, while police questioned his mother, Patricia Larry, in a squad car for approximately two hours.
During the police investigation of the shooting, they searched Ms. Larry’s home again. Finding nothing, they then proceeded to arrest his older brother for having truancy tickets.
In contrast, Spooner’s family was allowed to go into the home and remove “items” despite it being the crime scene.
John Spooner was given a $300,000 bail, (only $30,000 would have to be posted for him to be free). This is uncommon when the charge is murder in the first degree.”
Maybe we will see the Fox News defense? How the police treated this mother is horrible, they lack all common humanity these days.
This may be a defense for this old guy who shot his neighbor kid in cold blood:
Darius Simmons was by all accounts a good kid. The fun loving 6th grader was simply moving a garbage can in front of his home when his neighbor, 75 year old John Henry Spooner confronted him with a shotgun and accused him of stealing from his home. Darius, who was in school the time of the robbery, denied being involved with the theft. John Henry Spooner then proceed to shoot Darius in his chest, while he had his hands raise showing Spooner he was unarmed. His mom, who was watching in horror, ran to Darius to see if she could find a pulse, she couldn’t. Darius, 13 years old and unarmed, was murdered in cold blood in front of his mother.
According to Milwaukee Alderman Bob Donovan, he had breakfast with Spooner an hour before the shooting and Spooner told him he suspected Darius of the crime and was upset that the police hadn’t done anything about it. Spooner then told the Alderman, that there were other ways of dealing with these problems. That qualifies as premeditated murder of a 13 year old boy. To make matters worse, the family only lived next to Spooner for a month.
John Henry Spooner was arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide. A judge set cash bond of $300,000.
“Black youth are being stereotyped, targeted, and killed by law enforcement and now community vigilantes. This is bigger than the Castle Doctrine (Stand your ground law) , this is about our country’s continued refusal to acknowledge that we are still suffering from the sins of our forefathers. And the more we try to push the racial boogieman under the cover, the more it is going to bite us in the ass.” – Biko Baker
…
My definition of ‘amnesia felonious’ is that the onset of the amnesia begins while the subject is engaged in the last legal act before the commission of a felony. Memory miraculously returns when the subject is either in custody or returns to normal legal activity.
Oops, it was an assault case. Sorry. Here is the link.
http://www.loweringthebar.net/2011/06/judge-buys-sleepwalking-defense-to-assault-charges.html
Also an epic defense, and a bit off topic, the Red Bull made me do it defense.
http://www.loweringthebar.net/2011/07/no-jail-time-for-red-bull-killer.html
Oddly enough, and I’m still trying to find the link, there was the guy who murdered someone in his sleep… and got away with it. Lowering The Bar I think had the story, still trying to find it.
OS, I remember some pretty white collary cases using the “I forgot” defense. One guy attributed total amnesia of years of paperwork fraud to a medical incident that wiped his memory banks clean; another couldn’t remember how much money had passed through his hands on the way to his pocket, etc. So it’s not all about bad grammar and “low-class crime.”
What a nightmare
You people are funny.
However not sure what OS wanted to say: Was it just a convenient term to use in specifying a phenomenon? Or was it a genuine mental disturbance that disclosed itself in felonious crimes?
And in which way did the citing collegues take its use?
Most likely, you were pulling everybody’s legs, including mine. Such are one of my weaknesses.
Revealing takes away the joy of teasing, but be merciful.
Gives new meaning to “that is so easy I can do it in my sleep.”
Damn, I should’ve gotten a sleepwalk divorce — if only! “I was asleep and I woke up in his bed!”
Damn!
See this is the sort of consideration that Queens prosecutors have to consider in the case of the cop beating up State Supreme Court justice Thomas D. Raffaele.
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/06/08/new-york-officer-allegedly-attacks-jeering-crowd-hit-new-york-judge
The same goes my report ( that I made up) of their deliberations re the guy in the bank with a knife.
Was that cop wearing pyjamas?
He was? No case to answer.
A number of years ago, I coined a term, “amnesia felonious.” After having used it in several things I wrote, it has started creeping into the vocabulary of some forensic behaviorists in their writings.
The primary symptom of “amnesia felonious” is the defendant’s statement:
“I was just walking down the street and the next thing I knowed, I come to myself in jail. I don’t know nothing about no convenience store.”