Lawyer Drops Caffeine Insanity Theory in First Day of Trial
A lawyer who suggested in advance of his client’s murder trial that a caffeine overdose caused the defendant’s insanity is tweaking the legal theory.
As the trial for Woody Will Smith got underway in Newport, Ky., his lawyer argued he suffered from a sleep-deprived psychosis that made him falsely confess to killing his wife, Cincinnati.com reports. “There was no mention during the first day of trial in Campbell Circuit Court that Smith was allegedly taking massive amounts of caffeine-laced pills and the energy drink No Fear to stay awake,” the story says.
The lawyer, Shannon Sexton, blamed his client’s lack of sleep on fears that his wife was having an affair. Sexton said police had arrested the wrong man because of the false confession, and Smith’s wife had someone else’s DNA under her fingernails.
Previous reports had suggested Smith would invoke the caffeine insanity defense in an effort to evade legal responsibility for strangling his wife.
