Posted on 08/12/2005 7:56:18 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A state appellate court upheld the murder conviction Friday of a man who said he was sleepwalking when he stabbed and beat his girlfriend to death in a hotel room on Catalina Island.
Stephen Otto Reitz is serving a sentence of 26 years to life in state prison for the Oct. 1, 2001, killing of Eva Marie Weinfurter.
A three-judge panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal found that physical evidence and the nature of Weinfurter's injuries suggested that Reitz attacked her while awake. The decision said she was hit with a flower pot and cut with a knife on the back of her neck.
Reitz, a 29-year-old commercial fisherman, was found guilty of first-degree murder last year by a Long Beach Superior Court jury that rejected his contention that he was sleepwalking.
Reitz testified that he remembered dreaming about a struggle with an intruder he believed to be male. He said he woke up to find Weinfurter, 42, had been attacked.
Reitz said his conviction should be reversed because he wasn't allowed to ask an expert witness about whether one person could become violent and kill another while asleep.
The panel found that the lower court was wrong to keep him from asking the hypothetical question, but that the error did not hurt Reitz's case because jurors were unlikely to believe his sleepwalking defense anyway.
I honestly think that the guy is lying, but that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve a fair trial. There is a remote possibility, very remote, that the guy was really sleepwaking. That has to be verified. In my opinion.
"That has to be verified."
How could it ever be verified? At best it would become a battle of dueling experts, I imagine. I do seem to remember that some (one?) have beaten murder raps with this "explanation", but I could be wrong.
Considering I walk in my sleep and have night terrors I would have a VERY hard time convicting him. My heart is broken for her and her family but I am not convinced he did it on purpose.
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