The Criminal Responsibility of the Sleeping and the Unconscious Individuals

Committing physical behavior is a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for the realization of criminal responsibility, and this behavior must have been realized voluntarily to bear criminal responsibility. Therefore, if the perpetrator, for some reasons, has not acted for the purpose of doing so, he will not have criminal responsibility, and those reasons are called resolvers of criminal responsibility. In the 2013 Islamic Penal Code, the legislator has mentioned these reasons in Chapter Two, entitled "Barriers to Criminal Responsibility." Some of these reasons completely and absolutely eliminate the criminal responsibility, including childhood, dementia, and reluctance, and others will relatively lead to criminal responsibility being declined, including drunkenness, sleep, and unconsciousness. In this article, we examine sleep and unconsciousness as relative reasons of resolving criminal responsibility. We will also address the status of the will and the option of the sleeping or unconscious person, how he or she commits the crime, and the extent of criminal responsibility and punishment for the perpetrator by analyzing the provisions of the law.