SLEEPWALKING MURDER TRIAL
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PHOENIX (Court TV) — Although prosecutors have called Scott Falater's sleepwalking murder defense a "fantasy" and a "ruse," jurors may not so easily dismiss the theory.

For jurors deliberating the trial of Scott Falater, the key issue is whether he committed premeditated murder — whether he intended to stab his wife Yarmila to death 44 times on January 16, 1997. Falater, who has a history of sleepwalking, claims that he was not awake when he killed Yarmila. 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, through the testimony of an eyewitness and rebuttal sleep experts, prosecutors have cast doubt on the defense. The eyewitness, Falater's neighbor Gregory Koons, testified that he saw the defendant drag his stabbed wife her to their backyard pool, hold her head under water, and motion to their dog to keep quiet.

Prosecutors also presented evidence that Falater put a bandage on a cut he suffered during the attack, took off his bloody clothes, placed them in Tupperware and deposited the container in his car. And according to Koons, Falater went into the house after drowning his wife, turned on several lights, and then returned to the body, presumably checking to see that Yarmila was dead.

Prosecution sleepwalk experts testified that there was no way a sleepwalker could have done the things Falater did during his alleged spell. They have suggested that only a conscious person would have stabbed and drowned someone and then returned to check on the body. All these factors, prosecutor Juan Martinez said, prove that Falater's sleepwalking theory is a lie and that he was awake when he killed his wife.

But still, Martinez was not able to provide a clear motive and this could present jurors with a dilemma. Martinez has suggested that Falater killed his wife because they had a dispute over religion and having more children. But friends and acquaintances of Falater testified that the couple had a happy, loving 20-year marriage.

Technically, prosecutors do not have to prove a motive to gain a first degree murder conviction. According to Arizona law, a person is guilty of first degree murder if it is proven that he or she knowingly caused the victim's death. The law does not mention anything about proving motive.

Nonetheless, prosecutors — and Falater's defense — realized that proving a clear motive would bolster a premeditation argument. Motive would explain why Falater would allegedly plan his wife's murder. And if he planned the murder, then it was clearly pre-meditated. However, as defense attorney Michael Kimerer stressed in his closing arguments Wednesday, prosecutors lacked support for their premeditation argument.

Jurors also have the option of convicting Falater of second degree murder. To convict Falater of second degree murder, they would have to believe that he intentionally caused her death without actually planning it. The defense has claimed that Falater's actions — the slaying of his wife, his disposal of the evidence in his car, and the fact that he was still at home when police arrived — are so inexplicable that he had to have been sleepwalking or at least unaware of his actions. And Falater has not denied killing his wife.

The jurors' request to open the Tupperware that contained Falater's bloody clothes, might provide a clue to their frame of mind. Prosecutors had suggested that Falater's use of Tupperware showed that the murder was planned and therefore premeditated.

Ultimately, evidence not presented to jurors may determine Falater's fate. Citing hearsay, Judge Ron Reinstein refused to admit the testimony of a co-worker who claimed that weeks before the murder, Falater talked about a sleepwalking murder case out of Canada where the defendant was acquitted. That would have suggested premeditation. But the absence of such testimony may result in either a hung jury, a conviction on a lesser charge or the acquittal once thought so unlikely.

— Bryan Robinson