WHEN A CRIME IS NOT A CRIME

摘要

In 1988, a 23-year-old Canadian man named Kenneth Parks went on trial for the murder and attempted murder of his parents-in-law. One night in the previous year, he drove 23 kilometres across town to their home and attacked them with a tyre iron and a knife. He was acquitted on all counts, on the grounds that he was sleepwalking at the time. Since then, numerous defendants have pleaded "parasomnias" - an old-fashioned term for disorders involving partial arousal during sleep that is now mostly used in law. Mark Pressman, at the Lankenau Hospital in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, estimates that they are used as a defence in between five and 10 cases worldwide each year.