Caffeine Intoxication Insanity as Legal Defense Strategy?

(Sept. 20) -- Have you ever consumed so much caffeine, you swore you could just kill your spouse? Me neither, but according to one Kentucky man on trial this week, caffeine intoxication is real -- and it's the reason he's on trial for murder.

Woody Will Smith, a 33-year-old father of two, is facing life in prison for the 2009 murder of his wife, Amanda. His attorney intends to argue that Smith was so hopped up on caffeine -- courtesy of coffee, diet pills and energy drinks -- he was essentially too insane to have consciously, intentionally committed the heinous crime of strangling his spouse to death.

Smith alleges he'd been suffering from chronic insomnia, spurred by worries his wife would leave him. After dropping his kids at school, he described himself as "in a daze" to defense psychologist Dr. Robert Noelker.

"It is my opinion that this disorder was the direct result of psychosis due to severe insomnia," Noelker wrote in a case report obtained by The Associated Press.

Really, Woody? Caffeine intoxication?

Yup, it's a thing, according to the American Psychiatric Association. They classify a caffeine overdose as consumption in excess of 300 milligrams -- around nine cans of Coke, four Red Bulls or three Starbucks tazo chai lattes, according to the Mayo Clinic's estimates.

Smith apparently hooked himself up with around 400 mg of caffeine on the day in question, but it's a stat that prosecutors don't buy. According to them, blood tests from the day of the crime don't back up Smith's claims that he was supremely over-caffeinated.

Given the psychiatric designation assigned to caffeine overdoses, it's use as a legal defense seems somewhat more probable than those linked to other consumables.

Take Twinkies, for example. Though the media made much ado over Dan White's claims that a junk food diet was symptomatic of his depression -- which spurred his 1978 assassination of California politician Harvey Milk -- prepackaged pastries weren't a mainstay of White's defense.

I just drank nine Cokes. What kind of symptoms can I expect?

Murderous urges aside, medical experts cite an irregular heartbeat, jitters and nervousness, and even euphoria and muscle twitches, as symptoms of caffeine intoxication.

Going really overboard can yield more serious results, from temporary insanity and mania to the breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue that causes kidney failure.

Swilling excess caffeine might -- maybe -- catalyze your inner killer. But it takes a lot more effort to actually be killed by caffeine: Anywhere from 80 to 100 cups of coffee, consumed quickly, suffices to that end.

Is it a viable legal defense?

There's a precedent! Daniel Noble, who in 2009 drank two large Starbucks coffees before mowing down and injuring several pedestrians with his car, won a dismissal of all charges thanks to a "caffeine intoxication" defense strategy.

And with energy juices, shots and brews on the rise, there's no doubt we'll be seeing more caffeine-infused anecdotes -- and tragedies -- in the years to come. Or, at the very least, lots and lots of vomiting.

"It's sort of further down the line where we get concerned as emergency room physicians and as toxicologists," toxicologist Richard Church told CBS News in 2005. "The nausea can lead to intractable vomiting -- vomiting that just isn't necessarily very well controlled with routine medications we give in the emergency department."