Opinion ID: 1242865
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Frye Issue

Text: ¶ 57 As the court notes, the defendants were willing to assume for the purposes of their motion for summary judgment that the theory of repressed memory is legitimate. Ante, at ¶ 15. In light of this concession, this case affords us no opportunity to discuss the validity or invalidity of repressed memory. We should take this as a given and move on to see whether there are factual disputes. The parties, of course, have not briefed the issue and thus anything we say about it would be dicta indeed. ¶ 58 The court further notes that it neither addresses nor decides the Frye issue, ante, at ¶ 15, but nevertheless discusses selected fragments of some of the literature, ante, at ¶¶ 18-27, and actually announces its view on the scientific debate as though the issue were before us. Ante, at ¶ 26. ¶ 59 In my view, we should not indulge in substantive scientific inquiry, even in cases in which the Frye issue is squarely presented. State v. Hummert, 188 Ariz. 119, 127-28, 933 P.2d 1187, 1195-96 (1997) (Martone, J., concurring). But it is all the more inappropriate to discuss the legitimacy of a scientific theory in a case in which the scientific issue is not even presented. Nothing that appears in the court's opinion on this issue came from the parties, and I have no way of knowing whether what the court says is more right than wrong. Because the repressed memory discussion is dicta, when the Frye issue is properly presented on remand, neither the parties nor the trial court will be bound by the majority's resolution.