Opinion ID: 1349991
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Safeguards Approach.

Text: The second group of cases which adopt a middle ground is exemplified by State v. Hurd, 86 N.J. 525, 432 A.2d 86 (1981). As the New Jersey Court explained, Hypnotically-induced testimony may be admissible if the proponent can demonstrate that the use of hypnosis in the particular case was a reasonably reliable means of restoring memory comparable to normal recall in its accuracy. Id. at 538, 432 A.2d at 92. These decisions recognize the general problems associated with hypnosis, including extreme suggestibility, loss of critical judgment, tendency to confabulate, and increased confidence in one's recall. In an effort to reconcile these scientifically established problems associated with hypnosis with the recognition that rendering hypnotically refreshed testimony inadmissible may result in the potential loss of important evidence, these cases carve out a middle ground between admissibility and inadmissibility. To facilitate this approach, the Hurd Court adopted the following set of guidelines: First, a psychiatrist or psychologist experienced in the use of hypnosis must conduct the session .... Second, the professional conducting the hypnotic session should be independent of and not regularly employed by the prosecutor, investigator or defense. Third, any information given to the hypnotist by law enforcement personnel or the defense prior to the hypnotic session must be recorded, either in writing or in other suitable form .... Fourth, before inducting hypnosis the hypnotist should obtain from the subject a detailed description of the facts as the subject remembers them .... Fifth, all contacts between the hypnotist and the subject must be recorded. This will establish a record of the pre-induction interview, the hypnotic session, and the post-hypnotic period, enabling a court to determine what information or suggestions the witness may have received.... Sixth, only the hypnotist and the subject should be present during any phase of the hypnotic session, including the pre-hypnotic testing and the post-hypnotic interview .... Id. at 544-46, 432 A.2d at 96-97. These procedural safeguards were first suggested by Orne. See Orne, supra, at 335-36. A number of courts have followed New Jersey's lead in taking this middle ground, adopting guidelines similar to those above. See Brown v. State, 426 So.2d 76 (Fla.Dist. Ct.App.1983); State v. Beachum, 97 N.M. 682, 643 P.2d 246 (Ct.App.1981); State v. Martin, 33 Wash.App. 486, 656 P.2d 526 (1982). Oregon has codified this approach in its statutes. Or.Rev.Stat. § 136.675 (1981). Theoretically, adherence to these procedural requirements is supposed to increase the reliability of hypnotically refreshed testimony and decrease the dangers inherent in the hypnotic process, especially that of suggestion. Armed with a proper and complete record of the entire hypnotic process, a court may exclude hypnotically refreshed testimony if it deems it too unreliable after considering the procedures employed in performing the hypnosis. Since the jury hears this evidence only after the court makes an initial judgment of reliability, this approach at least eliminates the problems associated with the jury's having to make its own determination of reliability. A number of problems still remain. The most important is that ascertaining the reliability of hypnotically refreshed testimony may yet remain practically impossible even for well trained observers including the trial judge. If, as many experts on hypnosis believe, the hypnotized subject tends to confabulate or fill in gaps in his memory so that neither he nor the trained hypnotist can distinguish between what the subject truly recollects and what he has confabulated, then ascertaining the reliability of his hypnotically refreshed testimony becomes practically impossible. Only if this testimony is independently corroborated would its accuracy be reasonably ascertainable. In that case, however, the need for the hypnotically refreshed testimony is diminished since the corroborating evidence could often be used in its place. This approach also contemplates a case-by-case analysis of admissibility of specific hypnotically refreshed testimony. It consumes judicial time and leads to conflicting results in the trial courts. Further, it could have the adverse effect of giving hypnotically refreshed testimony, in the eyes of the jury, an aura of reliability which, in actuality, it does not possess .... People v. Gonzales, 108 Mich.App. 145, 160, 310 N.W.2d 306, 313 (1981), aff'd, 415 Mich. 615, 329 N.W.2d 743 (1982), modified on other grounds, 417 Mich. 968, 336 N.W.2d 751 (1983). The courts which admit hypnotically refreshed testimony if it follows certain safeguards equate the potential inaccuracies of hypnotically refreshed testimony with often historically inaccurate ordinary eyewitness testimony. Hurd, 86 N.J. at 542-43, 432 A.2d at 92. Certainly all eyewitness testimony is subject to inaccuracies because human beings are fallible. The problem with hypnotically refreshed testimony lies not so much with the fallibility of the human witness but with the defects in the hypnotic process itself which cannot be compensated for by the ordinary trial process. Hypnotically refreshed testimony is, quite simply, not like normal eyewitness testimony. The fatal flaw with the safeguards approach, as acknowledged by Orne who originally proposed it, is that the safeguards cannot prevent the subject from confusing that which he has confabulated under hypnosis with actual memory. Orne, Affidavit for Amicus Curiae Brief in Opposition to Petition for Rehearing before California Supreme Court at 6-7, People v. Shirley, 31 Cal.3d 18, 641 P.2d 775, 181 Cal.Rptr. 243 (1982), quoted in Ruffa, supra at 294 n. 8. Thus this approach affords no acceptable way to test the reliability of hypnotically refreshed testimony.