Court Opinion

ID: 9553715
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:33:48.367007+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:32:07.188892
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, Justice
(concurring and dissenting):
I concur in the majority opinion except for the portion excluding hypnotically enhanced testimony. I believe that such wholesale exclusion is unnecessary and that a compromise approach has logical and procedural advantages. Furthermore, I think that the majority opinion errs in applying a rule 702 analysis to the problem.
The majority opinion correctly summarizes the current status of the law in other jurisdictions on this subject. In my view, however, it fails to fashion an analytic framework that is consistent with this Court’s approach to other similar evidentia-ry problems. The majority says that “[t]he current skeptical approach to hypnotically enhanced evidence is fully in accord with *1220this Court’s recognition of the modern reconstructive theory of memory in State v. Long.” Majority op. at 1210. I agree entirely, but fail to understand why recognition of the theory results in unlimited admissibility for eyewitness testimony and blanket exclusion for hypnotically enhanced testimony. In Long, we had the following to say about eyewitness identification testimony:
[T]he circumstances [in this case] highlight the questionable wisdom of allowing the uncorroborated identification testimony of one eyewitness to serve as the linchpin of the prosecution’s case, at least in the absence of an instruction to the jury focusing its attention on the well-documented factors that affect the reliability of eyewitness identifications. The literature is replete with empirical studies documenting the unreliability of eyewitness identification. There is no significant division of opinion on the issue. The studies all lead inexorably to the conclusion that human perception is inexact and that human memory is both limited and fallible.
State v. Long, 721 P.2d at 488 (Utah 1986) (citations omitted) (emphasis added).
The Long opinion goes on to summarize current research and theory on memory process, documenting inherent problems in perception, retention, retrieval, and confidence about accuracy in human recollection. I submit that the case for outright exclusion of eyewitness identification testimony on the grounds of inherent unreliability is as strong as it is for hypnotically enhanced testimony. I further submit that, as we have undertaken ameliorative and protective efforts to limit the impact of the former, we might also logically, and more consistently, do the same with the latter.
The majority adopts a straightforward rule 702 analysis of this problem, describing hypnotically enhanced testimony as “the product of scientific intervention” and therefore equivalent to “expert testimony” within the meaning of the rule. This is an oversimplification which does not adequately account for the purpose and history of rule 702.
Rule 702. Testimony by experts.
If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge "will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training or education may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise.
Utah R.Evid. 702.
Scrutiny of the language of the rule demonstrates that it was explicitly designed to address expert testimony.
Whether the situation is a proper one for the use of expert testimony is to be determined on the basis of assisting the trier. “There is no more certain test for determining when experts may be used than the common sense inquiry whether the untrained layman would be qualified to determine intelligently and to the best possible degree the particular issue without enlightenment from those having a specialized understanding of the subject involved in the dispute.” Ladd, Expert Testimony, 5 Vand.L.Rev. 414, 418 (1952) (emphasis added).
The rule' is broadly phrased. The fields of knowledge which may be drawn upon are not limited merely to the “scientific” and “technical” but extend to all “specialized” knowledge. Similarly, the expert is viewed, not in a narrow sense, but as a person qualified by “knowledge, skill, experience, training or education.” Thus within the scope of the rule are not only experts in the strictest sense of the word, e.g. physicians, physicists, and architects, but also the large group sometimes called “skilled” witnesses, such as bankers or landowners testifying to land values.
Fed.R.Evid. 702 advisory committee’s note.
It is obvious that a witness testifying to facts the recall of which has been enhanced by hypnosis is not in any sense “specialized” or “expert” within the meaning of the rule. Consequently, the focus of the rule’s concern (i.e., the impact on the trier of fact of “scientific,” “specialized,” or “expert” *1221knowledge and opinion) is not relevant at the threshold of determining admissibility. The only relevant inquiry for admissibility purposes should focus on the witness’s testimony itself.
Rules 601 and 602 of the Utah Rules of Evidence establish a general rule of competency so long as a witness has “personal knowledge of a matter.” Rule 402 provides for the admission of all “relevant evidence,” but rule 403 permits exclusion of relevant evidence whose “probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of u'nfair prejudice, ... or misleading the jury....” I think the majority opinion, by applying a rule 702 analysis to “personal knowledge” testimony by a lay witness, has distorted the function of that rule and of rules 402, 403, 601, and 602. What should be a prejudice-balancing analysis under rule 403 has been transformed (by treating hypnotically enhanced testimony as “expert” testimony) into a competency evaluation, with a result that is contrary to the language and spirit of rule 601.
If hypnotically enhanced testimony is so inherently unreliable as to permit its outright and wholesale exclusion, then eyewitness identification testimony requires the same treatment.1 The fact that a witness’s recall has been subjected to “scientific intervention” does not change its nature as firsthand testimony about personal recollection. Eyewitness testimony may also have been “tampered with,” scientifically or haphazardly, by suggestive investigatory interviewing techniques, improper line-ups, exposure to other witnesses, and so on. There is no more assurance in the case of the nonhypnotized witness that the “memories” testified to are not the product of inaccurate superimpositions or defect-producing phenomena. We do not, however (at least as yet), exclude it entirely; instead, we take all the steps we can to ensure that the fact-finder understands its scientific limitations and inherent problems.
It appears to me, in fact, that the “scientific” nature of hypnosis, despite its problems, makes it easier for the courts to monitor its effects on eyewitness testimony and to safeguard against its misuse than is true for the more happenstance phenomena which distort nonhypnotically enhanced memory. We can at least control the hypnosis situation by strictly monitoring the qualifications of examiners and the content of the hypnotic intervention as a condition of admissibility. This would be the result of balancing the probative value of the evidence against its potential for prejudice under rule 403.
In conclusion, I acknowledge that the majority opinion’s approach reflects a reasonable and probably workable compromise on the admissibility question. However, there are conceptual problems in addressing this issue in a rule 702 framework, and we would be better off to focus on reliability as part of a rule 403 analysis. Rule 403 permits a straightforward, case-specific balancing of probative value and prejudicial potential. That approach is, in my view, more consistent with the language and intent of the Utah Rules of Evidence and does not disrupt the coherence of this Court’s approach to the issue of reliability of expert scientific evidence under rule 702.

. It should be noted that rule 702 would properly be applied to determine the admissibility of expert testimony about hypnosis, its reliability, and its general acceptance in the scientific community. Such evidence in connection with eye- ■ witness identification is not only permissible but has also been judicially acknowledged and incorporated by this Court in cautionary jury instructions. See State v. Long, 721 P.2d at 492-95.