Is sleepwalking/talking/eating etc...  related to Dreaming or completely a seperate event?

Here's why I asked....

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=6496475&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35, Orlando) -- Justin Cox, whose sleepwalking as a defense against child molestation charges was found not guilty on all counts Thursday afternoon.

The jurt took about three hours to return the verdict.

Cox had taken the stand in his own defense Wednesday and told the jury that he was sleepwalking when the incident occurred.

The 28 year old said he couldn’t remember what happened on the night of May 20th 2006 when he allegedly molested a 12 year old girl while staying at a relative’s house.

Cox admitted waking up on the couch beside the little girl but he said he was sleepwalking and had no idea how he got there or what happened.

“I woke up, I came to or whatever I realized I was on the couch,” Cox told the jury. “It took me a second because I was like in shock or what ever.”

Cox said he’s been sleepwalking since he was a child. His mother took the stand shortly after and said it’s a disorder that runs in the family.

“My dad, sleep walks still to this day,” the mother said. “I don’t anymore.  I only slept walk as a child and they had to keep locks on the doors to keep me from going out of the house.”

Prosecutors said they weren’t buying the sleepwalking excuse. They pointed out that Cox has never been diagnosed with a sleeping disorder and he was drinking heavily that night with his friends.

If convicted Cox could have faced a maximum of 15-30 years in prison.

  Interesting news Mr Evil.
You get tried by a jury in the US for child molestation?
Is this a jury of lay people or experts?
Doesn't this set some kind of a precedent?
I would like to hear this topic discussed too.

Not me. It was a topic on local radio and tv news.

But I know that I sleep-TALK, and I have no idea of it until my wife tells me what I said the next morning.

One night she video-taped me sleep talking, and I gotta tell you... It was the creepiest thing I had ever seen, and never want to see or hear it again. Because I don't remember any of it....dream or otherwise.
And nothing I said was anything like me. It was like someone else talking to people I don't know.
But it was my face, and my mouth, and my eyes were open, and I was gesturing.

One more thing.

The prosecutors said they didn't "buy" his story because he had never been diagnosed.

WTF? Does not being diagnosed prove that the considtion doesn't exist? That's just dumb.

What kind of lawyers are we raising these days?

Kikyo, care to comment?

Tough case. Oddly apropos to a certain other thread about free will.


I'm pretty sure you can opt to be tried by a jury for any criminal offense.


Your peers. Presumably lay people. But expert testimony can of course be an important part of the trial.


Not really. Not in the same sense that Supreme Court rulings set precedent.


It's a tough one. The cynic in me reflexively categorizes this guy as an opportunist pedophile. But on the other hand, I have seen people exhibit some really strange behavior while sleepwalking.

My sister used to sleepwalk bad when she was young. When we were like 10 or 11, she once got out of bed in the middle of the night, went into the bathroom, lifted the lid of the dirty clothes hamper (somehow thinking it was the toilet), and took a pee. Total comedy.

I suppose the key metrics here are, what is a person really capable of when sleepwalking? What's the threshold of interaction before they can reasonably be expected to wake up? Is there any way to distinguish feigned sleepwalking from the real deal? Or does it just come down to how effectively the person can convince us that he's actually been sleepwalking?

The more important angle I think is consideration of the severity of the transgression and appropriate consequences, irrespective of a sleepwalking defense. I think it might be reasonable to "quarantine" a sleepwalker (with an ankle bracelet, sex offender registration, etc.) if he exhibits a propensity for preteen girls. The fact that he's (presumably) not a risk while conscious doesn't mean that he's not a risk. It's like a sort of madness. You don't necessarily put the blame on the defendant, and you get him help or whatever, but the rest of society still has to be protected.

My gut tells me though that this guy, in his drunken stupor, came in, saw an "opportunity," and tried to take advantage of it. And then lied his ass off. But who knows?

Criminal law is not my subject, so I would have to do research to really comment. I do remember discussing this in criminal law class, which unfortunately was 6 years ago now, so the memory is vague. But basically the issue that a crime has to have two things:

And actus reus (the guilty act) and a mens rea (a guilty state of mind). The sleepwalking thing implicates both of those issues, because there is a question of whether when you are sleepwalking, you are committing volitional acts. It also brings up the question of whether there was a requisite state of mind for committing a criminal act.

I know that we discussed sleepwalking so this is an issue that has been explored in the law previously. I ... unfortunately can't remember the discussion now.

As for what the prosecutors said, I am guessing that they mean that if he was prone to sleepwalking in such a way that he would get up and do things as elaborate as molest a child, then he probably should have sought help for this before and didn't. It makes his assertion less believable since the sleepwalking issue is only suddenly coming up now. A pattern of behavior is one way of establishing credibility and if he can't show on ongoing pattern of this type of sleepwalking behavior, then it lessens the credibility of his story.

Finally, this is a jury trial and while juries are instructed in the law, they are not like judges - they do not have to give legal reasoning for their decision, they simply have to make a decision, and once made, they never have to explain that decision. So while honor would bind them to make a decision grounded firmly in the law, it's almost impossible to explain jury verdicts on legal grounds because you have no access to their reasoning, and for all we know, they could have just not believed that someone could do this while sleepwalking. Or they could have secretly felt that the crime occurred and should be punished, despite the sleepwalking. Or they could have believed the guy was lying out his ass. We can't know.

You are correct for criminal law. Mens & Actus

But are you YOU when you are sleepwalking? I am clearly not thinking for myself when I talk in my sleep. But then again, it must be me. Who else could it be?

Good call Skidoo. I have no free-will in this matter.

And to Ms. B - I'm sorry. The way you phrased the question looked like you were asking ME if I had been through this. I didn't realize you were outside the U.S..

I would also like to point out that just because he molested a real child in his sleep doesn't mean this is what was going through his mind at the time. He was asleep. For all he knows he may have been dreaming about being a monkey whooping up on a bird.

Clearly he was shocked to even find himself on the couch, let alone on the child.

That's ok, don't feel weird about it.    I put my location under my avatar to avoid future confusion. 

My response is here: http://www.theskepticsguide.org/sgublog/?p=217#more-217

Thanks for the question.

Thank you!

I have one more question on this. Near the end, you mentioned that he may have a mental problem rather than a sleepwalking problem.

My question is this.

Could he be a pedophile who controls his urges in his daily life so well, but the urges are so strong that the feelings manifest themselves when he is completely unable to control them (sleep)?

And if the answer is yes. Then how do you deal with a person who has the thoughts, but doesn't act on them when aware?

Could you arrest someone who has thoughts even though they don't act?

I think ethically you can. It is for the same reason that you quarantine people with a deadly and spreading virus, even if they don't want to spread it to anyone else.

I don't mean put them in a medical institution. I mean arrest someone for thoughts.

If someone tells you that they fantasize about having sex with little kids, but has never acted anything out. No porn, no nothing.... just said it. Do you have to wait until they act? Or could they be put away without any evidence other than admission?

I'll change it to bank robbery. If someone says, "Dude, I would so totally love to rob that bank." - what can anyone really do before they do it?

This is FL.... not the brightest bulb. But there are THOUSANDS of arrested pedophiles every year, and that doesn't account for the ones who just wish they could, the ones that did and aren't caught, or the ones that just fantasize.

The latter is the one I am talking about.

This guy may be repressing his thoughts, and purposely NOT doing it while awake. But repression always find a way to leak.