Stafford, Virginia - A Virginia court ruling in a horrific case is raising questions about diminished responsibility.

Megan Anne Walthall (32) was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Friday in Stafford County for filming herself sexually abusing her boyfriend while he was dying on July 15, 2019, the New York Post reports.

According to prosecutors, Walthall laughed in the perverted video and waited another 45 minutes before dialing 911, during which time Brandon Dye was reportedly unresponsive due to a heroin overdose.

The emergency services, who were alerted far too late, took the man to Mary Washington Hospital, but he died a short time later.

Officers seized more drugs in addition to Walthall's video shortly after the man's death.

The evidence was compelling, but the defendant's attorney, Price Koch, gave the judge a very different version of the story.

According to the report, Koch's client had also been on drugs at the time of the incident and had only recorded the video because she wanted to show it to her boyfriend later.

Walthall had wanted to convince Dye to ditch his heroin addiction. "It was done stupidly and wrongly, but there was no malice," Koch argued.

The prosecutor, Sandra Park, rejected that argument, saying the delay in calling 911 was inexcusable, the Roanoke Times reported.

Whether Walthall had even been able to understand what was going on that night ultimately remained an open question.

She has been involved in other drug-related incidents: she was also charged with giving another man so many drugs on December 12, 2019, that he died as a result.