NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
TERENCE B. TEKOH, Plaintiff

- Appellant,

v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; DENNIS STANGELAND, Sergeant; CARLOS VEGA, Deputy, Defendants

- Appellees, and
LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT; DOES, 1 to 10, Defendants. No. 18

- 56414
D.C. No. 2:16

- cv - 07297

- GW

- SK

MEMORANDUM *

On Remand from the United States Supreme Court Before: MURGUIA, Chief Judge, and WARDLAW and MILLER, Circuit Judges. Dissent by Judge MILLER. Following a federal trial, Ter en ce Tekoh appealed the district court’s decisions to (1) instruct the jury that a § 1983 claim could not be grounded in a Miranda violation alone, and (2) exclude the testimony of Tekoh’s coerced

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36

- 3. 

# FILED

MAY 11 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS2 confessions expert, Dr. Iris Blandón

- Gitlin. We ruled in favor of Te koh on the Miranda issue, but the Supreme Court reversed that decision

. See Vega v. Tekoh , 142 S. Ct. 2095, 2101 (2022). On remand, Tekoh concedes that his Miranda claim is no longer viable, but maintains that he is entitled to a new trial on his Fifth
A mendment coercion claim because the district court improperly exclud ed Dr. Blandón

- Gitlin’s testimon y . We review a district court’s decision to exclude expert testimony for abuse of discretion. United States v. Redlightning , 624 F.3d 1090, 1110 (9th Cir. 2010). Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we reverse. The district court erred in exclu ding Dr. Blandón

- Gitlin’s testimony on coerced confessions. Expert testimony is admissible if it will “help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” Fed. R. Evid. 702(a). “Whether testimony is helpful within the mea ning of Rule 702 is in essence a relevance inquiry.” Hemmings v. Tidyman’s Inc. , 285 F.3d 1174, 1184 (9th Cir. 2002). “Our case law recognizes the importance of expert testimony when an issue appears to be within the parameters of a layperson’s common se nse, but in actuality, is beyond their knowledge.” United States v. Finley , 301 F.3d 1000, 1013 (9th Cir. 2002). 1

1 Defendants

- Appellees only contest whether Dr. Blandón

- Gitlin’s testimony would be helpful to the jury

— i.e., its relevance

— and do not contest that her3 Dr. Blandón

- Gitlin’s testimony was relevant to Tekoh’s case, as she would have opined on how the text of confessions can indicate classic symptoms of coercion , and would have explained to the jury how Deputy Vega’s tactics could elicit false confessions

. She planned to testify that the apologies and excuses in Tekoh’s statement demonstrate that Deputy Vega utilized minimization tactics

— classic coercion

— to elicit incriminating admissions. She would also explain to the jury the significance of Deputy Vega’s use of a false evidence ploy when he told Tekoh there was video evidence

. A jury could benefit from Dr. Blandón

- Gitlin’s expert kno wledge about the science of coercive interrogation tactics, which Deputy Vega employed here, and how they c ould e licit false confessions. See United
States v. Halamek , 5 F.4th 1081, 1088

– 89 (9th Cir. 2021) (affirming admission of psychological phenomenon where it would help explain that phenomenon to the jury). Because false confessions are an issue beyond the common knowledge of the average layperson, “jurors would have been better equipped to evaluate [Tekoh’s] credibility and the confession itself had they known of the identified traits of stress

- compliant confession and been able to compare them to [his] testimony.” Lunbery v. Hornbeak , 605 F.3d 754, 76 5 (9th Cir. 2010) (Hawkins, J., concurring)

.

testimony is based upon sufficient data or that her conclusions are the product of reliable principles an d methods. See Redlightning , 624 F.3d at 1110.4 The district court incorrectly concluded that Dr. Blandón

- Gitlin ’s testimony would impermissibly vouch for or buttres s Tekoh’s credibility. Her testimony, however, was not that Tekoh was credible, but “assum [ing] the veracity” of Tekoh’s claims , she concluded that Deputy Vega used these coercive tactics

. Expert testimony that corroborates a witness’s testimony is not a credibility assessment or improper buttressing, even if it implicitly lends support to that person’s testimony. Cf. Reed v. Lieurance , 863 F.3d 1196, 1209 (9th Cir. 2017) (“ While [a]n exp ert witness is not permitted to testify specifically to a witness’[s] credibility, w e know of no rule barring expert testimony because it might indirectly impeach the credibility of an opposing party’s testimony.” (internal quotation marks and citations om itted) ).
A ppellees argue that Dr. Blandón

- Gitlin’s testimony lacked probative value because the falsity of the confession was not at issue in the case

. A ccording to the appellees and the dissent , e ven if the jury believed the confession was true, it was “well

- equipped” to conclude that Deputy Vega’s tactics

— racial slurs, threats of deportation, approaching Tekoh with his hand on his gun

— were unconstitutionally coercive without Dr. Blandón

- Gitlin’s t estimony . But despite the apparent obviousness of the coercion, at the second trial, the defendants repeatedly disputed that Vega used coercive tactics. And the expert’s proposed testimony was not simply about false confessions, but the coercive question ing tactics that lead to5 them. Dr. Blandón

- Gitlin’s testimony would help the jury better understand coerced confessions , including why just asking questions can be coercive, issues that are beyond a layperson’s understanding and not necessarily obvious, e ven in these circumstances. See Lunber y , 605 F.3d at 763 (Hawkins, J., concurring) (stating that it is “hard to imagine anything more difficult to explain to a lay jury” than the fact that the alleged perpetrator could have confessed to a crime he did not commit )

. Because the circumstances surrounding Tekoh’s confession go to the heart of his case, excluding expert testimony contextualizing his account was crucial to the outcome. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for a new trial on Tekoh’s Fifth Amendm ent claim.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.1 Tekoh v. County of Los Angeles , No. 18

- 56414 MILLER, Circuit Judge, dissenting: The jury had to decide who was telling the truth about the circumstances of Tekoh’s interrogation by Deputy Vega: Tekoh or Vega. The proffered e xpert testimony of Dr. Blandón

- Gitlin would not have been helpful to the jury in making that decision, so the di strict court did not abuse its discretion in excluding it. To be admissible, expert testimony must “help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” Fed. R. Evid. 702(a). Expert testimony is not helpful if the factfinder is “well equipped” to determine the issue “‘without enlightenment from those having a specialized understanding of the subject involved in the dispute .’” Fortune Dynamic, Inc. v. Victoria’s Secret Stores Brand Mgmt., Inc. , 618 F.3d 1025, 1040

– 41 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 702 advisory committee ’s note). In this case, n o specialized understanding was necessary to assess the evidence of the a l legedly coerci ve interrogation

. A s the district court explained, “this matter came down to a question of credibility”

— i f the jury believed Tekoh’s
account of the interrogation , then it would have been obvious that “the confession was indeed coerced

. ” Tekoh said that when he tried to leave the room, Vega rushed at him, stepped on his toes, and t hreatened , “ I’m about to put your black ass where it belongs, about to hand you over to deportation services, and you and your entire 

# FILED

MAY 11 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS2 family will be rounded up a nd sent back to the jungle

. ” According to Tekoh, Vega then ordered him to sit down, handed him a pen and paper, and dictate d a confession for him to write

. When Tekoh hesitated, Vega allegedly put his hand on his gun. It does not take a n expert to see how that w ould h ave been coercive

. According to Tekoh , an expert might have explained that he was also subject
to other , subtler pressures
. But e very situation is theoretically susceptible to some sort of expert analysis. It does not follow that such an an alysis would be helpful to the jury , especially not whe n common sense will do. The jury did not need a psychologi st to explain that an officer’s putting a hand on his gun would be threatening , any more than it needed a podiatrist to explain that an officer’s stepping on a suspect’s t o es would be painful

. Even if a general discussion of coerced confessions ha d a role to play in this
case, that is not what Dr. Blandón

- Gitlin would have offered. Rather, s he intended
to test ify about the coercion of Tekoh’s c onfession in particular

. Courts “routinely exclude” testimony by psychological experts who seek to apply general concepts to individual witnesses , because such testimony often amount s to a credibility
assessment. Yu v. Id aho State Univ. , 15 F.4th 1236, 1246 (9th Cir. 2021) (Miller, J., concurring) (citing cases). Credibility is a matter for the jury to decide, so “ [ a ] n expert witness is not permitted to testify specifically to a witness’ credibility or to3 testify in such a manner as to improperly buttress a witness’ credibility.” United States v. Candoli , 870 F.2d 496, 506 (9th Cir. 1989). Dr. Blandón

- Gitlin ’s testimon y would have violated that principle . She expressly assumed “the veracity of Mr. Tekoh’s accounts of events,” thus assuming that his confession was coerced. S he would have invoked her expertise to
press th at conclusion on the jury. “From a scien tific and p rofessional perspective,” she opined, “the content of [Tekoh’s] statement , as a key piece of evidence of the alleged crime [,] is of poor quality.” She described part of Tekoh’s confession as a “textbook example” of “minimiz ation tactics,” or “face

- saving e xcuses the interrogator creates” that “exponentially increase false confessions.” In so doing, she foreclosed the alternat ive interpretation that Tekoh’s “face

- saving excuses” were just that

— effort s to minimize the seriousness of an offense he had actually committed. Jurors have little room to draw their own conclusions about who is telling the truth when an expert uses the contested statement as the “ textbook example ” of falsity. In any event, even if there were some basis for admitting Dr. Blandón

Gitlin’s testimony, that does not mean that the district court abused its discretion in excluding it. See General Elec. Co. v. Joiner , 522 U.S. 136, 143 (1997). Under the abuse

- of

- discretion standard , we m ust uphold the district court ’s decision “unless the ruling is manifestly erroneous.” Id. at 142 (quoting Spring Co. v. Edgar , 994 U.S. 645, 658 (1879)). Tekoh has not come close to meeting that standard , so I would affirm the judgment of the district court

.