Prosecutor asks jurors not to be fooled in sleepwalking murder trial closings

Prosecutor Juan Martinez urged jurors not to buy Scott Falater's "fantastic" sleepwalking defense.

				SLEEPWALKING MURDER TRIAL
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PHOENIX (Court TV) — Urging jurors not to believe Scott Falater's far-fetched defense that he was sleepwalking when he stabbed his wife 44 times, Arizona prosecutors asked jurors to convict him of first-degree murder.

Prosecutor Juan Martinez compared Falater's defense to Cervantes' novel "Don Quixote" in closing arguments Wednesday.

"I'm asking you to not ride out here on a donkey like Sancho," Martinez said. "Don Quixote is creating this whole world for himself. Just like in a sleepwalking defense."

Falater is on trial for allegedly murdering his wife, Yarmila, on January 16, 1997. Falater stabbed her 44 times at their home, dragged her into their pool and then held her head under water.

The defense does not deny that Falater killed his wife, but insists that he did not commit murder because he was sleepwalking at the time, and therefore lacked the intent to kill. Yarmila, the defense believes, was killed when she tried to awaken a sleepwalking Falater while he was trying to fix a pool water pump with a hunting knife.

However, during the trial and in his closings, Martinez — sometimes sarcastically — cast doubt the sleepwalking theory and claimed that Falater's actions — such as changing his bloody clothes and placing them in the trunk of his car — suggest that he was not sleepwalking at all during the attack. Martinez focused on proving the incompetence of the parade of defense experts in the trial.

According to Martinez, defense sleepwalking expert Dr. Roger Broughton wasn't even aware the facts when he took the stand. Martinez recalled Broughton as saying, "'You know what? I didn't even know the gloves were in the bag. I didn't even know how these items were packaged.'"

"Shouldn't he have taken the time to figure that out?" Martinez asked jurors.

In addition, Martinez said defense psychologist Rosalind Cartwright, who had called Falater's alleged sleepwalking episode "the purest case I've seen with an act of violence of this kind," was so eager to become part of the case that she had offered to take the stand without ever speaking to Falater.

Martinez also attacked the credibility of Dr. Michael Bayless, who claimed Falater was "not an explosive personality type." The prosecutor suggested that the psychologist had falsely inserted a date into a report submitted to the court documenting his visit to the imprisoned Falater. While prosecutors had an undated copy of the report, the court's copy was dated 1997. Bayless could not explain why one copy was dated while the other wasn't.

Defense attorney Michael Kimerer had down played the difference by noting that the rest of the information on the two reports was the same.

Martinez also focused on sleep expert Janet Tatman. He accused her of ordering a lab technician to rig the tests on Falater's brain waves to show the "slow wave" activity associated with sleepwalkers. Although Tatman denied the allegations at trial and insisted her test procedures were proper, the clinical manager, Jacqueline Haek, supported the prosecution's theory as a rebuttal witness.

While his closing arguments focused on flaws in the defense's experts, Martinez told the jury that the defense was asking them to swallow too much. He noted that the fact that Falater went to bed wearing his contact lenses and was appropriately dressed for the time and weather weakened the defense's theory that Falater was in an unconscious trance during the killing.

Martinez also touched upon Falater's apparent tidying of the murder scene, the changing of his bloody clothes, and putting the container of evidence in the trunk of his car before returning to bed.

"It doesn't mean anything that [Falater] took the pants, took the knife, took the sheet, the mouthpiece. He took his socks, puts them in this Tupperware container and seals them very nicely," Martinez said sarcastically. "But of course he's not concealing anything."

Martinez also showed jurors pictures of Yarmila's stabbed body and told them she was still alive after 44 stab wounds. He described how Falater, seemingly eager to see Yarmila dead, had dragged dying his wife to the pool's edge and drowned her.

"He's got to push her into death's door," Martinez said. "He can't even wait for nature to take its course...after he's helped nature, of course."

Except for one witness' claim that Yarmila was unhappy with the demands of Falater's Mormon church, no witnesses have been able to suggest a possible motive for murder. In his closing, Martinez pointed out that the law did not require him to prove motive.

However, Martinez suggested that difference of opinion in religion and Yarmila's reluctance to have more children may have driven the deeply religious Falater to murder.

"Yarmila had committed an 'unforgivable sin,'" Martinez said.

The prosecutor also dismissed parts of the defense — Falater had brought home doughnuts for the next morning and had been planning a vacation with his wife — by saying that premeditation did not have to be days or even hours ahead of time.

"Premeditation could be right at that minute, a second before you decide to do it. That's what premeditation is," Martinez said.

The defense had claimed that tremendous stress from his job left Falater sleep-deprived and prompted the sleepwalking episode. But the prosecutor reminded the jury that a witness had revealed that Falater was not the engineer was not the target of pressure on a special project at his Motorola office. In fact, Martinez said, Falater was up for a promotion, not about to be fired.

If convicted of first degree murder, Falater could face the death penalty. Jurors will also consider second degree murder charges against Falater.

— Kristin Savarese