It was during the second day of the trial in early October that the presiding judge fell asleep in the middle of the defendant’s lawyer’s presentation. According to the lawyer, the same thing had happened the day before.

The trial was held in the Svea Court of Appeal, and the day the judge fell asleep was Friday, October 9. The lawyer claimed that the judge’s sleeping constituted a serious procedural error and requested that the hearing be halted and postponed. The other members of the court agreed to the request.

According to the court’s records, the judge subsequently left the case and was replaced by another judge, reports Dagens Juridik.

A judge who falls asleep during a trial can cause the entire case to be dismissed. According to the Code of Judicial Procedure, the verdict must be based on all that has been presented during the hearing, and only those judges who have been present for the entire hearing are allowed to participate in the judgement.

A judge who sleeps while the defense presents its case has therefore not taken part in all the evidence. Had the case still been decided, the verdict could, in the worst case, have been annulled due to judicial misconduct, which is a serious procedural error.

Everything Has to Be Done Again

When a new main hearing is held, the case must, according to law, be processed from the beginning, and evidence previously presented must generally be presented again.

For the parties, this means the same hearing has to be conducted again, with the extra time and costs this entails, and that the defendant will have to wait several more months for a decision.