This article from New Scientist asks whether sleep walkers can be held morally responsible for acts committed while unconscious. A different question is what effect a sleepwalker exception would have on crime. Would it encourage sleepwalkers to commit more crimes, or on the extensive margin would it encourage more to people to take up sleepwalking?
I have no personal experience, but if sleepwalkers believe they are awake, then they would not be motivated by an exemption for sleepwalkers. Of course at any moment in time all of us may be sleepwalking and assuming we all account for that small probability, a sleepwalker exemption would encourage more crime across the board. This could be easily compensated by a small, uniform increase in penalties.
We shold worry that non-sleepwalkers will make use of the additional defense at trial (the “jammie defense?”)
Nightcap Nod: Mindhacks.
Cheap Talk 
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December 10, 2009 at 7:44 am
Susan Simpson
A sleepwalker exemption might encourage people who are prone to sleepwalking while taking certain drugs to take those drugs more often, I suppose. But it’s not going to affect people who sleepwalk without any external stimulation — they’re effectively dreaming, real world rationalizations are not relevant.
Unless incentives can actually affect what people dream? Assuming there could be some way to verify self-reported dreams, that’d be interesting to know. Offer people money if they dream about a firetruck, or if they always act in a certain manner in response to certain dream situations, and see if their dreams change in response to the incentive.
March 18, 2014 at 10:07 pm
Fenny
I don’t know. I sleepwalk when sestrsed and awoken next to a sandwich an chips. I’ve even hand (often odd) phone conversations while asleep. The sex thing seems a big vigorous though to still be sleeping.