‘Un-sweet’ Dreams

You’ve been selected as a juror. A 4-year old boy smothered to death by his father. Two other kids attacked. One charge of first-degree murder and two of first-degree attempted-murder. The father is not denying that he physically did it. Open-and-shut case?  Think again.

During the early hours of September 22^nd, 2010 in Hillsborough, North Carolina, the 911-dispatcher received a call from a distraught man who claimed that his grandson needed urgent help. “Send the police and an ambulance”, he begged. Havoc could be heard in the back, while Christine, his daughter, tried to revive her son Blake, to no avail. Just after the attack, the father and alleged perpetrator –Joseph E. Mitchell- had locked himself in his home office. The police arrived and Blake was immediately transported to the Duke University Hospital; in the meantime, an officer managed to open the door of the studio, but Mr. Mitchell’s body apparently was leaning against it, making it difficult to get in. “I saw him lying over a pool of blood and with a knife in his hand; I assumed he was dead”, the officer said. After finding out he was still alive, another ambulance transported him to the hospital for surgery; he had stabbed himself twice on the torso and slashed his neck. According to “Lexi”, his oldest daughter, she had woken up on the early hours of September 22^nd, to his father –who was wearing a yellow fleece jacket and garden gloves- trying to smother her; she was able to fend him off and –thinking it was a nightmare- she passed out again, only to wake up to the screams of Blake, her youngest brother. “I thought he was yelling because of his allergies, because he had done that in the past”, said Lexi, until she heard Devon, her 10- year old brother yelling: “Stop! Get off me!” When she ran towards his room, she saw her father on top of Devon, trying to cover his mouth as well. While trying to push him off of her sibling, her father grabbed her by throat, but she managed to bite him off, and he walked away. “Help!” Lexi yelled at her mother. “Dad is trying to attack us”. Devon will later tell police that his father had come and left the room repeatedly, and flicked the lights on and off several times. Christine asked Lexi to get her brothers and take them to her bedroom, so they could be safe while she figured out what was going on. She thought this was just a nervous outburst. Their financial situation had been strained for a while, causing stress to the couple, especially on Joseph.

Getting rid of the problem?

The Prosecution submits that –evidence will show- that Mitchell was up to his head in debts; his lack of luck on finding a stable job during the past 2 years, had ended in him spending most of his retirement funds and lying to his wife about the fact that they were going to be evicted from their home in a few days, due to foreclosure. “He had been living a lie and was about to be exposed”, says the Prosecutor; “so he decided to kill his children”, maybe as a way to free-himself from the financial burden that –under his eyes- they were causing.

The Sleepwalking Theory

Now it’s time for the defense to present their case. They allege -and you will hear from the defendant himself- that when Joseph E. Mitchell awoke in the Hospital, the day after the attacks, he couldn’t remember anything of what had transpired the night before. The last thing he recalled was going to bed and then waking up in the hospital, asking the staff what time it was, being assessed by a Clinical Psychologist and later, being informed by an attorney he might be charged with manslaughter for the murder of his son. Until then, he had no idea that he had put his family through a vicious nightmare.

As preposterous as the argument may seem, throughout the trial the defense will try to cast -at least reasonable doubt- on the accusation that Joseph E. Mitchell had killed his son intentionally. They will rely on what is known as the “Sleepwalking defense”. For the layman, this may sound like a blatant ruse, but attorneys have been using this defense for violent crimes from as early as 1846, when in Boston, a guy called Albert Tirrell killed a prostitute by slicing her throat and then set the brothel on fire. Tirrell’s attorney alleged that his client was a chronic sleepwalker and successfully convinced the jury to find him not guilty. There’s at least 6 more cases of this kind documented, with the one of Kenneth Parks, a man from Toronto, being a landmark, due to the fact that, after killing his mother in law and seriously injuring his father in law, he went to the police not noticing that he had severely sliced both hands, fitting the “lack of pain” that characterizes most sleepwalkers.

It is argued in court that in order to secure a conviction for a criminal offense, two elements must be present: the guilty act itself (actus rea), and a guilty mind (mens rea),which implies purpose, intent or negligence. Sleepwalking doesn’t debate on the act itself, but on the argument that if the person committing the crime is unconscious, he/she has no control over his/her actions and therefore cannot be held accountable for them.

Convenient amnesia or a real sleep-disorder?

Joseph Mitchell goes to the stand and testifies that he remembered nothing about the crime and he loved his family; he justifies his lies regarding their financial crisis as attempts to “not have them exposed to the kind of life I had as a child” and talks about his depression, insomnia and stress during the years before the attack.

To support his testimony, the defense calls their star witness: Dr. George Corvin, a Forensic Psychiatrist who performed an extensive evaluation on Mitchell while he was at the hospital. He mentions that when Joseph was informed about what he had done, he barely reacted because he was in total disbelief: “It’s surreal; I’ll believe it when I see it”, were his words. According to the Dr., when the defendant committed these acts, he was suffering from “Parasomnia”, a cluster of sleep disorders, which include sleepwalking and Non-REM parasomnia. The scientific basis is that during sleep, the brain alternates between two main stages: REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and Non-REM. The latter can go from light to very deep sleep. Most of the dreams occur during the REM stage, in which the brain stays active, like when we are conscious; blood pressure goes higher, breathing becomes sporadic and the brain paralyzes the body, so that we don’t act up on our dreams. During a typical 8-hour sleep night, these two stages alternate around 6 times, but the transition isn’t always subtle. In people with parasomnia, these two stages can overlap. In the case of Joseph Mitchell, Non-REM parasomnia is alleged, which usually happens in the first third of the sleep cycle. When this kind of disorder occurs, the brain parts that control our movements remain active, while the ones that help us recognize faces, are inactive. Thus, the person may have his eyes open, but be unaware of his/her actions. When a sleepwalker is suddenly confronted by a person or a loud noise, violence can occur in the form of smashing objects or causing harm to themselves or the people around them; they don’t remember anything the next day, because the conscious part of their brain was asleep the whole time. The fact that during sleepwalking episodes, people are unlikely to feel pain even while suffering an injury, might explainwhy Joseph was able to stab himself several times, which for a normal person would be excruciating. The expert goes on to describe that among the triggers of these disorders are acute stress and recurrent insomnia, which match Mitchell’s state of mind at the time. “When I interviewed Joseph, I could watch that his ‘affect’, meaning the range of emotions that an individual displays, showed someone completely disconnected with reality and the gravity of the situation.” This whole “always optimistic and conflict avoidant approach” he had towards life, may have caused the accumulation of hectic emotions that led to his disorder, manifesting themselves in a heinous way.

The wrong charges?

After hearing various witnesses, both the defense and the prosecution rest their case. Now it’s your turn to work on the deliberations. The judge instructs you on the law. Is Joseph E. Mitchell guilty of the charges against him? After all you’ve heard, you might still have mixed emotions, but now the sleepwalking defense may not seem so far-fetched… The judge explains that first-degree murder consists of “an unlawful killing that is both willful and premeditated, meaning that it was committed after planning or lying in wait for the victim”. Does that fit Mitchell’s actions? Did he deliberately plan to suffocate his kids that night?

In the real trial, it only took the jurors around 90 minutes to conclude that Joseph E. Mitchell didn’t killed his son nor attacked the other two with intent and premeditation. The verdict was Not Guilty on all counts and after it was read, his ex-wife Christine started hyperventilating and cried: “I couldn’t save him!” referring of course, to his deceased boy. After the hearing, the local news media reported that one of the jurors explained how hard it was for them to give a not-guilty verdict, but his crime didn’t fit the description of the charges, thus “their hands were tied”. “We would definitely have convicted him of manslaughter”, the juror added, which is described as “an unlawful killing that doesn’t involve malice aforethought—intent to seriously harm or kill, or extreme, reckless disregard for life.”

So, was this just about the prosecution filing the wrong charges? Or was the fact that he was unconscious, enough to dismiss the attack as a criminal offense?

Attorneys themselves have a hard time grasping for the truth about what is fair in this type of cases. What would your verdict be? Being a juror in a case like this and going home knowing that a father who killed his son is walking free, will probably keep you awake at night.

Maybe this reality explains why some people would just rather adopt the “optimistic approach and “disconnect themselves from the situation.”

 By: Martha Hernandez

Sources:

Swords and Scales– Podcast by Wondery; The Anatomy of Violence, Adrian Rane, Pantheon Books, 2013; Psychologytoday.com, Dangerous Dreamers, David K. Randall, January 2nd, 2013; Sleepeducation.org, Sleepwalking: Overview and Facts, 2018, American Academy of Sleep Medicine; Wral.com, news, March 4^th, 2015. Joseph MitchellMurder Trial, Parts 1-4.