Sleep walking is a common sleeping disorder. However, have you ever thought someone could actually commit a crime while sleeping? Parasomnia describes many different types of disorders, such as: nightmares, sleep terrors, sleep walking, confusion arousal, REM disorder, and sleep enuresis (aka bed wetting). The only one that is related with certain crimes is sleep walking. Can you imagine going to bed then waking up with the police knocking at your door and a dead body on your floor with no recollection of anything? It'd be pretty dang scary. And how would you, as a jury, come up with a verdict in a situation like this. Here are a few court cases dealing with sleep walking crimes.
http://www.usnews.com/health/family-health/sleep/articles/2009/05/08/7-criminal-cases-that-invoked-the-sleepwalking-defense.html
http://www.usnews.com/health/family-health/sleep/articles/2009/05/08/7-criminal-cases-that-invoked-the-sleepwalking-defense.html
Wow, I never even thought of this before. I read the article, and the thing I found interesting about some of the cases was that in the first trial, the fact that the people were asleep/could have been sleepwalking wasn't even part of the evidence- this information was given in the appeal. If it were me, I would have probably wanted the jury to know as soon as possible that I was a sleepwalker.