Lawyer testifies he can't remember home-invasion attack on law firm managing partner and wife
Lawyer Andrew Schmuhl testified on Tuesday that he can’t remember barging into the Virginia home of a law firm managing partner and his wife, and can’t remember stabbing the couple in what prosecutors have termed a “torture session.”
The Washington Post, WUSA and WJLA have stories on Schmuhl’s testimony that the drugs he was taking caused “weirdness on top of weirdness,” confusion and incontinence.
Schmuhl said he takes several painkillers for chronic back pain from a training injury in the Army where he was a lawyer in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He is accused in the November 2014 home invasion and attack on the managing partner, Leo Fisher, and his wife, Susan Duncan, after Fisher fired Schmuhl’s wife.
During cross-examination by Chief Deputy Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Casey Lingan, Schmuhl said he doesn’t recall entering the home and doesn’t remember being arrested in his car while wearing nothing but a diaper. “Honestly I could have been wearing a dress and not realized it,” Schmuhl said.
Schmuhl also said he didn’t recall being in his car outside Fisher’s home two nights before the attack—the image was captured on video—and he didn’t know his wife had purchased a Taser, disposable cellphones and adult diapers.
He said he didn’t remember using the Taser on Fisher, didn’t remember tying up Fisher and Duncan with zip ties, didn’t remember slashing Fisher’s throat, didn’t remember stabbing the couple and didn’t remember firing a bullet that grazed Duncan’s head. Fisher and Duncan both survived.
Schmuhl was taking the painkillers Fentanyl and Dilaudid, the antidepressant Xanax for his insomnia, and the fertility drug Clomid for low testosterone. He said his life was miserable in 2014, and he spent most of the day in the bathtub while his wife was at work.
A psychiatrist testified that the medicines taken by Schmuhl could cause fatigue and confusion. She also said the drugs could cause psychosis, drawing an objection from the prosecution.
Judge Randy Bellows had previously ruled that Schmuhl’s lawyers did not meet notice requirements for an insanity defense based on voluntary intoxication. As a result, Bellows said the lawyers could present expert testimony about the toxicological effects of medications he took, but experts couldn’t discuss any psychiatric diagnosis.
