by Joey Garcia
Thursday, July 11, 2024
If I say, “sleepwalker,” does your mind conjure an image from the movies or cartoons of a person walking robotically, arms outstretched, eyes closed, unaware of their surroundings or actions?
Before the rise of the data-based science called sleep medicine, sleepwalking was considered a mysterious phenomenon. Movies, theatre productions, novels, and other fantasy-rich arts played on people’s lack of knowledge. The dramatic arts imprinted dramatic images on the general public’s minds, leading people to misunderstand and, in criminal cases, attempt to misuse the facts about this rare sleep disorder.
What is called the “sleepwalking defense,” is actually a legal argument that a criminal defendant isn’t at fault because they acted while in a sleeplike state, without consciousness or intent to commit a crime. It has proved successful occasionally in the U.S.—one time each in 1846, 1879, 1920—and once in the 20th century in 1987. But as science about sleep and sleep disorders has evolved, the sleepwalking defense has been tossed out of courts around the world.
Godfrey Smith, the attorney for triple-murderer Jared Ranguy, has suggested sleepwalking as the reason Ranguy murdered his stepfather, Robert Vellos; his mother, Karen Skeen Vellos; and his sister, Teena Skeen at the family’s home in Ladyville. In March 2024, Ranguy pleaded guilty to the November 2012 murders. To raise a sleepwalking defense is to conjure doubt about Ranguy’s intent: Did he intend to kill his family members in cold blood?
What is not being discussed is that the introduction of a sleepwalking defense might impact the judicial system of Belize. If it persists, sleepwalking might be used for any crime in Belize without the proof required in countries where the sleepwalking defense has already been rejected. To fully understand the issues at hand, we must examine the nature of sleep.
When we sleep, our bodies move through three stages. The first, which lasts about ten minutes, occurs right after we fall asleep, and in this stage we can be awakened easily. Next, our muscles relax, and our brains move into slow wave activity. The final stage is deep sleep. It takes us 20-40 minutes to fully enter the third stage of sleep, and although there may be body movement, it’s very difficult to wake someone. The body cycles through these stages four to five times each night.
Sleepwalking occurs in stage three. Since the somnambulist (the medical term for a sleepwalker) is in a deep state of sleep, they usually don’t respond when spoken to. If they do speak, it’s incoherent. In a handful of criminal cases, the sleepwalking defense has been used to argue that a defendant cannot be culpable for his crime. However, for the defendant to have a valid sleepwalking excuse, the defendant must: 1. Provide evidence, through existing, pre-crime medical records of a history of sleepwalking that involves violent or dangerous acts that are inconsistent with the individual’s daytime behavior; 2. Undergo a sleep study in a sleep lab, which is a designated medical space where sleep testing takes place, and this test would have to be conducted during normal sleeping hours; 3. Not have a history of violence or abuse toward the individuals that the defendant has harmed or murdered; and 4. Not have engaged in behaviors during the crime that require conscious intellectual activity such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering.
According to the American Psychological Association’s handbook on sleepwalking and criminal behavior, “The current scientific study of the sleepwalker’s brain and cognitive function has determined that frontal and parietal lobes are profoundly deactivated during sleepwalking episodes while motor areas remain active. (As a result)… sophisticated, cognitive functions such as planning, memory, or social skills should be very limited or absent. Thus, by closely examining the sleepwalker’s actions and behaviors, the expert can determine whether witnessed or inferred behavior should or could be possible during an alleged sleepwalking episode, or more likely occurred during wakefulness, alcohol intoxication, or another state of consciousness. If the alleged sleepwalker demonstrates cognitive behaviors possible only during wakefulness, then sleepwalking can be ruled out …”
Some psychiatrists and psychologists in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada have expressed great concern that the sleepwalking defense could become a get-out-of-jail-free-card no matter the crime. This might be particularly an issue for countries like Belize that lack professional sleep labs and that are without psychiatrists who are board certified in sleep disorders. It’s not difficult to find a paid expert to assert that sleepwalking is a “possibility” in a criminal case, thus supporting the “reasonable doubt” that defense attorneys rely on.
The American Psychological Association (APA) has repeatedly registered great concerns about the sleepwalking defense: “How is the court to distinguish between the bona fide sleepwalker who involuntarily committed an act that is otherwise criminal, and the individual who voluntarily committed a criminal act and is now using the sleepwalking defense to avoid the legal consequences of his actions? How is a judge to determine who is a sleep expert and what is reliable sleep science?”
The latter is of great concern. Who is a reliable expert on sleepwalking? As the APA has noted, some who call themselves sleepwalking experts may pull from circumstantial or indirect evidence of sleepwalking and consider stress levels before the incident, prior sleep deprivation, even caffeine use. Other sleep experts might focus on descriptions of the defendant’s behavior during a sleepwalking episode as being inconsistent with the current scientific knowledge of sleepwalking. Keep in mind that sleepwalking is a rare disorder, and yet one that some accused individuals attempt to mimic to elude responsibility for their crimes.
Jared Ranguy, the triple murderer, is my cousin by marriage. He murdered my kind-hearted Uncle Robert, who is my mother’s brother; Robert’s wife, my beloved Aunt Karen; and my beautiful cousin, Teena. Robert, Karen and I, along with Karen’s wonderful sister, Marilyn, worked together for more than a decade in a nonprofit that provided free training for Belizean teachers, and free academic summer school programs for Belizean children. Jared helped out a few times, too. And yet, in the many years that our family worked together in these education programs, and during other visits and holidays, no one mentioned a sleepwalking disorder ever occurring in the family. Rising from a bed, walking through a home, and speaking gibberish if spoken to—all of the behavior is so strange, it’s hard to imagine that it would never have been mentioned. In addition, Jared has no established medical history of such a disorder.
I commend Jared for pleading guilty to the crimes he committed. Now, I can only hope that the Jewel will not suffer from future claims of the sleepwalking defense. Perhaps with a good night’s sleep, we will all see the potential harm it could cause.
(Joey Garcia is a Belize-born journalist.)