The charge was murder. The defense was sleep walking. Being a sleep expert witness in the court room is very unlike our experience of plying our trade in the laboratory, classroom or the consulting office.
Court is an adversarial environment different from our usual venues.
Not that there are no legitimate areas of debate in our field. All of these questions were raised at a recent trial and were answered differently by the sleep experts for the prosecution and the defense. These too, were responded to differently by the experts. These are all good questions and I have asked them of myself since testifying and would now like to share some of my answers with you and ask for your comments. They do not feel pain, cold, or hear shouts or respond to their own name for some period of time.