A Kentucky man charged with strangling his wife with an extension cord is set today to claim temporary insanity triggered by excessive caffeine from diet pills, sodas and energy drinks.

Woody Will Smith, 33, admits to killing his wife in 2009, but claims in pre-trial filings that he was ingesting the pills and caffeinated drinks at the time to stay awake to keep his wife from leaving him, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

He says he thought that 28-year-old Amanda Hornsby-Smith was having an affair and would flee in the middle of the night with their two children.

Psychologist Robert Noelker, who was hired by the defense, says Smith suffered from a brief psychotic disorder that was triggered by a lack of sleep.

Noelker writes that Smith "was exquisitely vulnerable to development of the brief psychosis given his sleep deprivation and the cognitive effects brought about by Ephedra, caffeine, and other diet aids that he ingested in the two- to four-week period prior to the lethal assault of his wife."

Smith had been scheduled to go on trial in July in Newport, Ky., but prosecutors asked for the delay to give them time to test caffeine in energy drinks and diet pills to learn more about their effects on the body.

Prosecutors stated in pre-trial hearings that Smith did not test positive for caffeine in his system at the time of his arrest.

The Associated Press says a legal strategy involving caffeine intoxication is rare, but was used successfully last year in Washington state to clear a man charged with running down and injuring two people with a car.

(Posted by Doug Stanglin)