Opinion ID: 606114
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Due Process Right to a Continuance

Text: 12 Petitioner's final argument concerns the trial court's denial of petitioner's request for a continuance in order to consult with an expert in hypnosis. Two witnesses, Officer Mullikin and Dale Jackson, underwent hypnosis at the direction of the Wichita Police Department in order to enhance their memory of the event. The witnesses' descriptions of the murderer changed somewhat after the hypnosis, which occurred on November 18, 1980. On February 24, 1984, thirteen days before the start of Petitioner's third trial, Petitioner requested and received funds to hire an expert in hypnosis, but the trial court denied his request for a continuance. The trial court also ruled that the witnesses could only testify to the descriptions they gave prior to hypnosis; they could not testify to new facts revealed during hypnosis. 13 The grant or denial of a continuance was well within the trial court's discretion. Haislip, 701 P.2d at 926. To warrant federal habeas relief, a denial of a continuance  'must have been so arbitrary and fundamentally unfair that it violates constitutional principles of due process.'  Case v. Mondragon, 887 F.2d 1388, 1396 (10th Cir.1989) (quoting Hicks v. Wainwright, 633 F.2d 1146, 1148 (5th Cir.1981)), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1035, 110 S.Ct. 1490, 108 L.Ed.2d 626 (1990). Here, counsel waited until the brink of the third trial, following almost three years of representation in this case, and three years after the hypnosis, to request a continuance. Petitioner does not suggest that he was surprised at the proposed testimony. That fact, coupled with the trial court's restrictive ruling on admissibility of the testimony, convinces us that there was no abuse of discretion. 14 AFFIRMED. 15 FNThe Honorable Wayne E. Alley, United States District Judge for the Western District of Oklahoma, sitting by designation.