Steven Steinberg
In 1981, Steven Steinberg of Scottsdale, Arizona, was accused of murdering his wife, Elena, by stabbing her twenty-six times with a kitchen knife, as she cried out for her children. He initially tried to blame it on burglars and a home invasion gone wrong, but after police investigators debunked that possibility, he confessed to killing her but claimed to have done it while sleepwalking, which condition resulted from excessive stress caused by his wife’s constant nagging for money.
During the ensuing trial in the Maricopa County Courthouse, the prosecutors put all their eggs in one basket by making a case for premeditated murder, without bringing any other charges. Steinberg’s attorney, who specialized in insanity defenses, made a case for not guilty by reason of insanity. The defense was helped by what emerged during the proceedings as sloppiness and incompetence on the part of the Scottsdale police during their investigation.
Steven himself testified that he was unaware of the killing at the time, that he was sleeping when it took place, and so it must have happened while he was sleepwalking. The defense brought in a psychiatrist as an expert witness, who testified that Steven killed his wife whilst in the grip of a dissociative reaction, and so he could not have been aware of what he was doing at the time.
Steven himself was a presentable person who came across as a nice guy. After deliberating, the jury returned its verdict, finding that he was not guilty on grounds that he was suffering from temporary insanity when he killed his wife. Because the insanity was only temporary and he was sane at the time of the acquittal, Steven Steinberg walked out of court a free man.
In the aftermath of the case, Arizona changed its insanity defense laws, and judges now are required to impose a “guilty but insane” sentence in temporary insanity scenarios such as that of the Steinberg case. Criminal defendants who are found guilty but insane these days would have to go to a mental institute, where they might be interred for as long as if they had been sentenced to prison.