On New Year's morning of 1989, Paul Cox broke into the bedroom of a
married couple, both medical doctors, and slashed them to death. The
murder remained unsolved until Cox confessed his crime to several
fellow members of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Cox's defense consisted at various times of the following
propositions:
- He thought the couple were his parents, because they were sleeping
in the bedroom of the home in which he and his parents used to live.
- A psychologist once told him that he had "patricidal and
matricidal tendencies."
- He was in a "drunken stupor."
- He was "temporarily insane" and "really snapped."
- He had to confess to his fellow AA members because he was
"obligated" to follow the rules of AA in order to recover.
Adele Walker, a lawyer who specializes in legal claims of
confidentiality, argued that since AA goes so much good, confessions
of a fellow recovering alcoholic—like confessions to a priest or a
psychiatrist—should not be admissible at a trial. "It doesn't seem
right. It's like he's being punished for recovering."
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