Opinion ID: 1793148
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Appellant's Testimony Restricted

Text: We turn to appellant's argument that the trial court's limitations on her testimony were too restrictive. Courts that decline to permit hypnotically refreshed testimony are often faced with the difficulty of dealing with a witness who has already undergone hypnosis. The concern focuses on determining what the witness could remember prior to hypnosis and insuring that the opposing party not be deprived of the opportunity for effective cross-examination because of the influence of hypnosis. Collins v. Sup. Ct., supra. The likelihood of contamination was deemed so pronounced in People v. Shirley, supra , that the court ruled a previously hypnotized witness was wholly incompetent to testify on matters dealt with while under hypnosis. However, the general response has been to permit the testimony of those recollections held prior to hypnosis, and on topics unrelated to those covered by hypnosis. To ascertain just what those memories are and to render that testimony admissible, the courts require verification by way of a detailed record by the hypnotist of the pre-hypnotic session. A preferred method is video or sound recording, Collins v. Sup. Ct., supra, and some courts have suggested the Hurd guidelines be followed when pertinent to a particular case, People v. Hughes, supra ; Collins v. Sup. Ct., supra. The Hurd guidelines, or something similar, are proposed as there is still a danger that the hypnosis could be so suggestive as to affect the pre-hypnotic memory as well. Once it has been shown by clear and convincing evidence that testimony of pre-hypnotic recollections is reliable, a subject may testify, but only to those memories demonstrably shown to be a product of the memory prior to hypnosis. The burden of proving the reliability is on the proponent of the testimony. Commonwealth v. Kater, supra , People v. Shirley, supra , Collins v. Sup. Ct., supra, People v. Hughes, supra , State v. Atwood, supra. The trial court in this case chose the course of excluding testimony induced by hypnosis and admitting testimony of the appellant based on pre-hypnotic recollection. The difficulty was determining what that recollection was, based only on a record from the pre-hypnotic session with Dr. Back, a record admittedly incomplete. In this situation the trial court limited the appellant to what she could recall without the benefit of hypnosis, as evidenced by Dr. Back's notes and enlarged by Dr. Back's memory of her discussions with appellant before she was placed in a hypnotic state. Appellant argues the court misapplied the rule employed by courts where hypnotically induced testimony is inadmissible and was too restrictive. Appellant, however, never demonstrated how the rule was violated. The rule simply limits the hypnotized subject's testimony to those matters demonstrably recalled prior to testimony. Any other testimony on the topic runs all the risks discussed earlier in hypnotically refreshed memories. Here, the court was in a difficult position as the defense supplied only partial notes of the pre-hypnotic session. Nevertheless, the appellant was allowed to testify to those items referred to in the notes and given considerable latitude in explaining them in her own words. The trial court also allowed testimony on matters Dr. Back had previously testified were covered in the pre-hypnotic session. The burden was on appellant to establish a reliable record of the testimony. She cannot now claim error because the court restricted her to the record she offered. Dr. Back testified that during the hypnotic session she took appellant back to her childhood and brought her forward to the shooting incident. Under these circumstances, in order to avoid testimony on topics covered in the sessions that were not previously preserved, the trial court could have limited appellant entirely to the notes and testimony of Dr. Back. However, to give appellant as much latitude as possible, the trial court applied that order only to the day of the shooting. Appellant complains that ruling was too restrictive and should have been limited to the explanation of the shooting incident itself. We find no support for this argument. Appellant does not deny that other events of the day were covered in the sessions, nor that they were relevant, but maintains the primary purpose of the session was to find out how the gun went off. While this may be so, the record reveals that the time covered in the sessions included the day of the shooting and, if anything, the ruling was generous. As noted in our discussion of appellant's next point, the most significant events of that day were included in Dr. Back's notes and appellant was able to testify to those matters. Appellant suggests the better method of determining her pre-hypnotic memory would be her own recollection, and not the notes of Dr. Back. Appellant cites no authority and we think it would be circumventing the very reasons for excluding hypnotically refreshed memory to permit the witness to decide what was remembered naturally and what was induced by hypnosis. A similar suggestion was made in Shirley , to which the court responded: [I]t is the consensus of informed scientific opinion today that in no case can a person previously hypnotized to improve his recollection reliably determine whether any unverified item of his testimony originates in his own memory or is instead a confusion or confabulation induced by the hypnotic experience. It would fly in the face of that consensus to allow a witness to be the judge of which portions of his testimony were actually produced by hypnosis.