Trial starts for lawyer accused in managing partner attack; involuntary intoxication asserted
A trial begins today for a Virginia lawyer accused in knife attacks on a law firm managing partner and his wife in a harrowing November 2014 home invasion.
Lawyers for the defendant, Andrew Schmuhl, hope to call a psychiatrist to testify about the effect of medications on his mental state in an apparent bid to establish an involuntary intoxication defense, report the Washington Post and the Associated Press. Schmuhl has not worked since a 2012 accident caused a spinal cord injury.
The judge in Fairfax County, Virginia, who is overseeing Schmuhl’s trial has yet to rule on whether he will allow the testimony, according to the article. Prosecutors contend the testimony must be barred as a result of a 2009 Virginia Supreme Court case rejecting appeals by a defendant who took a quadruple dose of Ambien along with Benadryl and a painkiller. A trial judge had ruled the defendant knew or should have known he shouldn’t have taken the combination of drugs.
Schmuhl is accused of attacking Leo Fisher, managing partner of Bean, Kinney & Korman in Arlington, Virginia, and his wife, Susan Duncan. Both survived. Bean Kinney fired Schmuhl’s wife, lawyer Alecia Schmuhl, who is accused of waiting outside during the attack and driving the getaway car. She will be tried separately.
Fisher testified in a preliminary hearing that his attacker—whom Fisher identified as Andrew Schmuhl—used a stun gun and then used zip ties to bind Fisher and his wife. The attacker slit Fisher’s throat and repeatedly stabbed Fisher’s wife. During the ordeal Schmuhl asked about the Knights Templar and said he was there to check on an email about a bounty placed on the head of a drug cartel member, Fisher said.
Model jury instructions in Virginia govern the involuntary intoxication defense. They provide that jurors should find the defendant not guilty if they believe the defendant was unknowingly made intoxicated by an accident or mistake, or an error by his physician. The intoxication must have “so unsettled the defendant’s reason that he did not understand the nature, character and consequences of his act, or he was unable to distinguish right from wrong.”
University of Richmond law professor Ronald Bacigal wrote the book that is cited as a source for the jury instruction. He told the Washington Post that Schmuhl has a potential defense, but there are potential problems.
People are skeptical of such a defense, he said. Also, he said, Virginia doesn’t allow for a diminished capacity defense. Schmuhl can’t say medications “lowered my inhibitions. You have to say the intoxication was so bad I couldn’t control my behavior,” Bacigal told the Post.
Minnesota has a similar jury instruction. A defense lawyer for a woman accused of attacking her daughter got charges dismissed after asserting the defense, the Post article says. He claimed the woman, who had bipolar disorder, had a psychotic episode as a result of Prednisone she was taking for asthma.
