Man Diagnosed With ‘S£xsomia’ Is Cleared of R@ping A Woman After Telling Court He Was Asleep When They Had S£x.

Timothy Malcolm Rowland, 40, was acquitted of r@pe after claiming he was experiencing an episode of s£xsomnia, a rare disorder where individuals engage in s£xu@l activities while asleep.

The jury’s not-guilty verdict came after a seven-day trial in which Rowland maintained that he had no conscious control over his actions. The alleged incident occurred on August 26, 2022, after he and the woman had spent a night drinking together. They ended up at his apartment, took a naked bath, and went to bed. According to the woman’s testimony, she woke up around 6 a.m. to find Rowland having s£x with her, prompting her to push him off and leave immediately.

The case took a pivotal turn when jurors questioned Judge John Pickering about the legal consequences of committing crimes while unconscious. The judge’s response was firm: a person cannot be held criminally responsible for acts they have no conscious control over.

“We’re not about to punish people for acts that they have no lawful control over,” he stated, emphasizing that the law does not currently recognize s£xsomnia as a criminal offense. He cautioned the jury against ruling based on laws they wished existed rather than those that are in place.

Rowland’s defense wasn’t centered on denying that the incident happened—it was about proving that he was asleep when it did. The trial acknowledged his history of s£xsomnia, but the key issue was whether he was in an episode at the time or fully aware of his actions.

This case raises complex ethical and legal questions. Should medical conditions like s£xsomnia absolve someone of responsibility in cases of non-consensual acts? How can the legal system differentiate between a genuine episode and a fabricated defense? And most importantly, where does the line between justice and medical ambiguity lie?

For now, the law remains unchanged. But as cases like this emerge, they challenge society to rethink the intersection of neuroscience, accountability, and justice.