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F 4.030a Epilepsy As Defense Theory Even If Crime Did Not Occur During A Seizure.
Typically recognized defenses such as unconsciousness, insanity, diminished capacity/actuality, and guilty but mentally ill are not thought to apply to epileptic defendants unless the defendant committed the criminal act during an epileptic seizure. However, medical research indicates that an epileptic may experience uncontrollable aggressive impulses between seizures. (See Irma Jacquelin Ozer, “The Epilepsy Defense Reconsidered,” Criminal Law Bulletin, Vol. 33, No. 4, July-August 1997, pp. 328-51.)
Hence, epilepsy may be a defense theory even if the crime did not occur during a seizure.