Debate: Crimes Committed While Sleepwalking

Weirdly, this was the subject that inspired my first story on here. Here if you're interested: http://www.abctales.com/story/alex-tomlin/bad-dream. He wasn't even charged but I think there was a long history of sleepwalking. I found it fascinating - how would you feel if you woke up and discovered you'd killed your wife in a dream?

Yes, I believe they should be charged. Why? A crime is a crime and unless curtailed, it could be horrible. Our middle son had a sleepwalking problem, around the age of eleven, and when we heard him get up in the middle of the night, my wife or I had to get out of bed and follow him making sure he went to the bathroom. Some times he tried to climb a wall, and we made sure he did not go outside. It took some time, and chit-chats with him, and eventually he grew out of it. Richard and Esther Provencher

Richard L. Provencher

Another interesting aspect of sleepwalking is... should someone who hurts themself while sleepwalking be able to claim damages? I say this because I seem to remember someone sued an English local council because her son had opened the bedroom window in the flat in which they lived and ended up badly hurt after falling several floors to the ground. The argument was that the council should have fitted windows that prevented such things from happening, especially in the higher flats. I think she was awarded about a million pounds. I have not heard of another instance since - but then maybe the local councils were convinced that installing safer upper flat windows was a wise investment. A quick Google didn’t find the case I mentioned but found a different, rather amazing, sleep fall... Sleepwalking girl's amazing escape from 25ft fall in Horsham http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/4390598.Sleepwalking_girl_s_amazing_escap...

As a mentally ill guy who sometimes wakes up still inside my dreams(ocasionally sleep-walks, etc.,) my opinion simply is that it's vital to have facilities for the criminally insane, places where corrections and therapy are intertwined. Yes, some people who consciously commit their crimes would get away with an easier sentence(though not the bahamas,) but the greater evil would be avoided. And I don't speak as someone especially likely to kill anyone while sleep-walking, as my dreams are very rarely violent and even when I feel threatened, I don't jump to killing people. But I happen to know that it would be quite possible for a murder to occur during sleep-walking, without the murderer having had any idea what was really going on.

Interesting issue. Case law in the UK has made determinations on the matter beginning with what are known as the M'Naughton Rules. This goes back to a bloke called M'Naughton who shot Robert Peel's secretary (I think that's right, in about 1840). In effect it introduces the defence of insanity. The House Of Lords, having deliberated, delivered the following exposition of the Rules: "The jurors ought to be told in all cases that every man is presumed to be sane, and to possess a sufficient degree of reason to be responsible for his crimes, until the contrary be proved to their satisfaction; and that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong." The M'Naughton Rules are still used in the UK and most US states. Later, the idea was expanded to address the issue of sleepwalking. In R v Burgess 1991, the Court of Appeal ruled that the defendant who wounded a woman by hitting her with a video recorder while sleepwalking, was insane under the M'Naghten Rules. Lord Lane said, "We accept that sleep is a normal condition, but the evidence in the instant case indicates that sleepwalking, and particularly violence in sleep, is not normal." So far as sentencing is concerned, English law is reasonably clear. Under section 3 of the Criminal Procedure (Insanity and Unfitness to Plead) Act 1991: Where the sentence for the offence to which the finding relates is fixed by law (e.g. murder), the court must make a hospital order restricting discharge without limitation of time. Otherwise, if there is adequate medical evidence and the defendant has been convicted of an imprisonable offence, a hospital order requires that the defendant be admitted to and detained in a hospital for treatment for a mental disorder (see sections 37-43 of the Mental Health Act 1983). So, in conclusion, I'd say that it is right and proper that a person committing murder (or other serious offence) while sleepwalking SHOULD be charged for the offence and brought to court, but that it is possible for the defendant to claim the defence of 'temporary insanity' or whatever phrase you wish to use. Under the M'Naughton Rules, a determination can then be made as to whether the defence applies in that instance. Anyway, that's my take on the issue. Helvigo Jenkins

Ummmm. No. They should get treated for their homicidal sleepwalking tendencies, but if it is (and clearly it's a bitch to prove) the fact, then... Ummmm... No. How about a guy who strangles his wife having a nightmare? He will get charged because you can't prove shit. But on principle? You cannot say 'yes' to that question.

Yeah, like "somethingididntdo" implies, the right place for someone with "homicidal sleep-walking" tendencies would be an institution, until they were clearly recovered from the problem. And the truth is that psychiatric institutions, even "nicer" ones, are not pleasant, easy places to live. So when a person is sent to a psych institution for years, it's not like they're getting off scot free: believe me. And I'm not saying that just because a person's mentally ill, he has a license to commit murder. But it's usually just after I wake that I get the very occasional hallucinations and voices that I'm prone to. Those who've never had hallucinations or voices might not realize how incredibly real they seem, just like a dream carried over into waking life. Personally, I think there's a need for criminal/psychiatric institutions where certain individuals can be placed for life after they've committed a murder(assuming the jury or judge sees this as the appropriate punishment.) Because the alternative, in America anyway, is that the "insanity defense" has been gutted and juries are rarely comfortable with it regarding violent crimes because(understandably) they don't want the person released back into society. That said, maybe I'm wrong on this, because mentally ill people who commit violent crimes and are treated are much, much less likely to re-offend than their non-mentally ill peers(in America.) And, finally, I want to give you one piece of information you might not be aware of. Despite the massive myth, even the severely mentally ill are not as a group especially prone to violence. That statistics are amazing, with some studies indicating that the mentally ill(despite their financial and social handi-caps) are straight across less violent than the non mentally ill. And, if you compare the mentally ill with others with similar socio-economic situations, the evidence is sweeping: the mentally ill are actually less violent, and they're frequent targets of violence by others.