After Choate delivered a six-hour closing argument, the jury retired to deliberate. They returned two hours later with a not guilty verdict, on grounds that Tirrell was unaware of his actions at the time of the killing, and was thus not legally responsible.
In subsequent years, other defendants were acquitted based on a sleepwalking defense. Ironically, however, America’s first successful sleepwalking defense was probably a sham.
A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.
I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.
A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.
