Capital Punishment Is Not Warranted For Narcoleptics

Narcoleptics can cause a major problem if their sleeping disorder causes them to fall asleep on the road. A person that falls asleep at the wheel due to a sleep disorder such as narcolepsy, is not deserving of the death penalty. Capital punishment would not be warranted in the case of a sleeping disorder caused fatal car accident because there is no intention or motivation to kill.

Narcolepsy can be defined as a chronic primary sleep disorder, characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and sleep dysfunction. Symptoms can begin to occur at any stage in between the ages of 10 and 30, but there is also the chance it could occur at any point in life.

Consider this thought experiment: Joe, a 22 year-old college student, stays up late many times a week studying for his classes. He feels that he is often tired, but he believes this is due to his poor sleep schedule. Joe falls asleep at the wheel one afternoon on the way to class and kills Lee, the driver of another vehicle. Joe wakes up confused. In the days following the car accident and leading to Joe’s trial, Joe falls asleep several other times. A doctor runs a polysomnogram and sleep latency tests on Joe and diagnoses him with Narcolepsy. Capital punishment is not warranted in this case because Joe did not intend to hurt Lee, nothing motivated Joe to hurt Lee, there were no prior circumstances between Joe and Lee that would have caused Joe to want to hurt lee, and Joe had an unknown medical condition. In this scenario, Joe’s intention was to drive to class. His motivation to drive his car was to get to his class. He did not drive with a reckless motivation or with malicious intent. Joe had never met Lee prior to the car accident. This shows that there were no circumstances between the two that would have caused Joe to want to hurt Lee. Another circumstance in this situation was that Joe had the unknown medical condition of narcolepsy. The narcolepsy is what caused Joe to fall asleep behind the wheel, and Joe’s car accident with Lee was directly affected by Joe’s falling asleep. Because Joe had no prior knowledge that he had the sleep disorder, there was no way he could have predicted or planned this progression of events that led to Lee’s death.

One may argue that people with mental disorders that kill others are deserving of the death penalty and they too can be unaware of their actions if they are in a similar “sleep like state’ as those with sleeping disorders. Although those people may be in a different state of mind, their actions are still caused by prior circumstances and motivations in their lives. Their mental disorders cause them to act out and kill people, but they have had prior negative relationships and circumstances with these people that has motivated them to kill, even if it is in a different mental state. These prior circumstances, motivations, and intentions can make them deserving of the death penalty, whereas a person such as Joe who has no intentions, motivations, or circumstances to kill is not deserving of the death penalty.

Capital punishment is not warranted in the situation I have described because Joe is not a criminal attempting to cause harm. Joe could not control his actions because of his sleeping disorder. Although some people that cannot control their actions and kill are deserving of the death penalty, Joe is not because there was no motivation, intent, or circumstances leading to Lee’s death. In this situation, capital punishment is not warranted.