Mass. Court Hears Sleep Talk Appeal
Dec. 6 -- When Massachusetts prosecutors used the words a 10-year-old girl uttered in her sleep to convict her neighbor of sexual assault, defense attorneys vowed an appeal, arguing that the “sleep talk” testimony should have never been allowed at trial.
Now it is up to Massachusetts’ highest court to decide whether sleep talk is admissible in court.
Today, lawyers for Jorge Almeida asked the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to overturn his 1998 conviction because, they argue, testimony about the girl’s sleepy mutterings unfairly prejudiced the jury.
Jurors, defense attorneys argue, should not have been allowed to hear the testimony because there is no evidence that people speak the truth while sleeping.
Began With Innocent Visit
The case began in 1996 in Milford, Mass., when two girls asked Almeida to let them into the cage in his backyard where he kept his pet rabbits. According to prosecutors, Almeida attacked the two girls in the pen, fondling them before they could escape.
The father of one of the alleged victims testified at trial that the other girl incriminated Almeida while talking in her sleep the night of the alleged attack. The girl had finished reporting the incident to police and was staying at the other alleged victim’s house for the night.
The father told jurors that he overheard the girl have a nightmare about the attack and name Almeida as her assailant.
“She was repeating, ‘Jorge, get off me. Jorge, get off me,’ in her sleep,” the father testified at the 1998 trial.
Not the Only Evidence
The sleep talk testimony was not the only evidence against Almeida. The girl herself testified he had fondled her. But she did not remember talking in her sleep because she was just that, asleep.
Because she was asleep and could not remember the statement, the girl could not be cross-examined about it, denying, defense attorneys argue, Almeida’s constitutional right to challenge his accuser.
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