:: Husband Killed in Sleep; Wife Tries New Defense ::

Her lawyer vows to ‘redefine how we understand affirmative defenses’

Columbus, Ohio (L9NN) – A man was shaken, kicked, and loudly sighed to death by his wife as he lay sleeping in their comfy queen-sized bed Thursday night in an apparent act of matrimonial snoricide. 

“It’s beyond tragedy.  It’s a case of a woman driven crazy, really.  Completely crazy,” the woman’s lawyer said.  “After abuse after abuse, we really can’t blame her.”

Her husband was allegedly snoring.  Loudly.  In fact, the snoring was allegedly amplified by what the defense is calling two mitigating circumstances: the fact that the husband had a head cold and the fact that he was taking Nyquil for said head cold.

“Snoring is one thing,” said one woman on the street.  “Snoring will keep a woman up.  But take a head cold and add some medicine that makes the snorer unrousable and you’ve really just got a recipe for disaster.  For tragedy.  It’s such a shame.”

In Washington, Attorney General Ima Woman, II issued a statement saying that while snoring is not currently an allowable affirmative defense under federal law, it could be time to put such a defense to the test.

Woman told the press Friday morning, “With the right jury, I think she could definitely get off.  It’s a shame, obviously, that a sleeping man with a cold had to die to bring about this kind of drastic change to the current penal and legal systems, but sometimes that’s how change happens.”

Neighbors of the couple are divided in their response to the man’s death.  While several of the neighboring women seem ready to jump to the defendant’s defense, others aren’t as sure.  One neighbor, Shirley Guilty, said this Friday morning: “My husband snores.  That doesn’t mean I can get a gun and shoot him, even though I’d like to.”

Her neighbor, Letta Go, was quick to refute Guilty’s statement, arguing that the defendant “did not shoot her husband.  He died as the result of her futile efforts to wake him up and get him to stop snoring.  She tried bouncing on the mattress, rubbing his back, kicking him gently, even sighing and saying ‘for chrissakes’ loudly enough to rouse him.  That’s really different from taking out a gun and shooting him.”

Go’s husband, Big Fat Snorer, reminds us, however, that snorers have rights, too.  “Killing someone doesn't solve the bigger problem.  What about other snorers?  What about other ways of rousing snorers?  What about just leaving the room?"

It will be interesting to watch this case play out over the coming months and, probably, years.

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Please note: no actual husbands were killed in the making of this news story.  Matrimonial snoricide was, however, considered at various points throughout the night.