Did 16-year-old Tiffany Taylor stab her mther to death while having a nightmare and sleepwalking?
That may figure heavily in the defense of the now 17-year-old girl who is charged with first degree murder.
Her lawyers yesterday questioned potential jurors on whether they had ever had the experience of sleepwalking, having nightmares, or hitting someone unintentionally while sleeping.
A number of potential jurors said they had some experience with either sleepwalking or nightmares, some directly and some with relatives who had the experiences.
Sitting at the defense table dressed in a dark colored pin-striped suit, Taylor listened as the potential jurors responded in detail to the questions put her lawyers [sic].
"My son used to be a sleepwalker," one potential juror, a woman, told defense attorney Joe Edwards. "I had to get up and put him back to bed."
"I used to be a sleepwalker," one man said in answer to the lawyer's questions. "I woke up outside one night."
"My son's buddy got discharged from the Army for sleepwalking," another potential juror said.
One woman said her son was a sleepwalker and that he had at times done "weird things," such as going to the kitchen and trying to cook something while sleepwalking.
Another woman told the attorney that her son once got up in his sleep and was piling the sheets and pillows from his bed onto the floor and calling for a lighter.
"He thought he was burning garbage, and when I went to him, he shoved me back," she said.
"Have any of you ever had nightmares in which violence played a part?" defense attorney Edwards asked.
"Yes, it was about my fear of heights," said one man.
"I've had nightmares where I would wake up and know something had happened, but could not put my finger on it," another man said.
"Have you ever hit anyone while having a nightmare, or been told later that you hit someone?" attorney Edwards asked.
"Yes, I have hit my wife sometimes while sleeping," one man said.
"And in the morning she told you about it?" the attorney asked.
"No, she let me know about it right then and there," the man said.
"My wife has woke me up a time or two and said, `What are you doing hitting me?'" another man said.
According to testimony in a previous hearing, Tiffany Taylor told TBI Agent Larry O'Rear soon after the murder that she and her mother had been sleeping and waking up to argue that night.
Her mother had forced her to come and sleep in the mother's bedroom, and during the night, she had a nightmare and then woke to realize she had stabbed her mother to death, she told O'Rear.
While he apparently tapped into humankind's fascination with dreams as he questioned potential jurors yesterday, attorney Edwards also touched on other aspects of the case, including Tiffany Taylor's "relationships with members of the black race" and the fact that she gave birth to a baby last year "and wasn't married."
No one in the jury pool expressed any strong feelings about those matters.
Edwards also asked the potential jurors, "Does anybody have a problem with the rights given to the accused in the United States? Do any of you think they have too many rights?"
One man said, "Yes. It just seems like the criminals are getting away with a lot of stuff anymore." But when questioned further, the man said he felt he could "give Ms. Taylor the rights she has under the Constitution," as Edwards put it.
Edwards also asked potential jurors, "Do you think that all killings of human beings are criminal?"
One man responded, "No. If somebody invaded my home and I killed them, it's justifiable as far as I'm concerned."
And all the potential jurors agreed with Edwards that "some accidental killings are not criminal."
State prosecutors say Taylor, who was a Cookeville High student at the time, killed her mother after planning to do so. She was upset because her mother was attempting to control the girl's lifestyle and friends, according to the state's case.
Jury selection took up the whole day in court yesterday, but a panel of 12 was seated by late afternoon, and testimony was to begin this morning at 9 a.m.
Taylor is represented by attorneys Mike Knowlton and Joe Edwards. State prosecutors are Assistant District Attorneys Lillie Ann Sells and Ben Fann.
Judge Leon Burns is presiding over the case.