Zamora v. State

Ronney Albert Zamora (defendant) was a 15-year-old who shot his 82-year-old neighbor while burglarizing her home. Zamora was charged and convicted of first-degree murder and three other charges by a jury. On the murder charge, Zamora was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole in 25 years. The other sentences would run concurrently. At trial, Zamora had entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity based on the new defense of involuntary subliminal television intoxication. The state moved to limit questioning into the effect of television on children. Zamora’s expert, Dr. Margaret Thomas, would have testified that television violence affects juvenile viewers. However, Thomas would not have been able to state that a person who watched a lot of violence on television became so affected that the person was no longer able to tell the difference between right and wrong pursuant to the M’Naghten test. Under the M’Naghten test, an individual was legally insane if mental illness prevented the individual from knowing right from wrong at the moment the individual committed the conduct at issue. The circuit court granted the state’s motion in limine and excluded Thomas’s testimony. On appeal from the conviction and his sentences, Zamora argued, in part, that some of the circuit court’s rulings essentially frustrated his insanity defense because they narrowed the scope of his investigation into how sociopathic children are affected by television. Zamora argued that the exclusion of Thomas’s testimony was reversible error.