Court Opinion

ID: 9450932
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:01:12.816999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:28.767705
License: Public Domain

FOR PUBLICATION

  UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
       FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

TERENCE B. TEKOH,                         No. 18-56414

               Plaintiff-Appellant,          D.C. No.
 v.                                       2:16-cv-07297-
                                             GW-SK
COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES;
DENNIS STANGELAND, Sergeant;
CARLOS VEGA, Deputy,                        OPINION

               Defendants-Appellees,
and

LOS ANGELES COUNTY
SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT; DOES,
1 to 10,

               Defendants.

      On Remand from the United States Supreme Court

                   Filed August 4, 2023

Before: Mary H. Murguia, Chief Judge, and Kim McLane
       Wardlaw and Eric D. Miller, Circuit Judges.

                Opinion by Judge Wardlaw;
                 Dissent by Judge Miller
2                TEKOH V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES

                          SUMMARY *

              Civil Rights/Coerced Confessions

    On remand from the United States Supreme Court in a
42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging violations of plaintiff’s
Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination
in his criminal case, the panel reversed the district court’s
judgment on a jury verdict in favor of defendants and
remanded for a new trial on plaintiff’s Fifth Amendment
claim that his confession was coerced.
    The Supreme Court held that a violation of Miranda is
not itself a violation of the Fifth Amendment, and that there
was no justification for expanding Miranda to confer a right
to sue under §1983. Vega v. Tekoh, 142 S. Ct. 2095
(2022). On remand, plaintiff conceded that his Miranda
claim was no longer viable, but maintained that he was
entitled to a new trial on his Fifth Amendment coercion
claim because the district court improperly excluded the
testimony of coerced confessions expert Dr. Iris Blandón-
Gitlin.
    The panel held that the district court abused its discretion
in excluding Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony on coerced
confessions because the testimony was relevant, false
confessions are an issue beyond the common knowledge of
the average layperson, and the circumstances surrounding
plaintiff’s confession went to the heart of his case.

*
 This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
               TEKOH V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES                3

    Dissenting, Judge Miller would hold that district court
did not abuse its discretion in excluding the proffered expert
testimony of Dr. Blandón-Gitlin. No specialized
understanding was necessary for the jury to assess the
evidence of the allegedly coercive interrogation, and her
proffered expert testimony would have violated the principle
that an expert witness is not permitted to testify specifically
to a witness’ credibility or to testify in such a manner as to
improperly buttress a witness’ credibility.

                         COUNSEL

Paul L. Hoffman (argued), Schonbrun Seplow Harris
Hoffman & Zeldes LLP, Hermosa Beach, California; John
C. Washington, Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman &
Zeldes LLP, Los Angeles, California; John Burton and Matt
Sahak, The Law Offices of John Burton, Pasadena,
California; for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Antonio K. Kizzie (argued), Snell & Willmer LLP, Los
Angeles, California; Rickey Ivie, Ivie McNeill & Wyatt, Los
Angeles, California; Melinda Cantrall, Hurrell Cantrall LLP,
Los Angeles, California; for Defendants-Appellees.
4               TEKOH V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES

                          OPINION

WARDLAW, Circuit Judge:

    Following a federal trial, Terence Tekoh appealed the
district court’s decisions to (1) instruct the jury that a § 1983
claim could not be grounded in a Miranda violation alone,
and (2) exclude the testimony of Tekoh’s coerced
confessions expert, Dr. Iris Blandón-Gitlin. We ruled in
favor of Tekoh on the Miranda issue, but the Supreme Court
reversed that decision. See Vega v. Tekoh, 142 S. Ct. 2095,
2101 (2022). On remand, Tekoh concedes that his Miranda
claim is no longer viable, but maintains that he is entitled to
a new trial on his Fifth Amendment coercion claim because
the district court improperly excluded Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s
testimony.
    We review a district court’s decision to exclude expert
testimony for abuse of discretion. United States v.
Redlightning, 624 F.3d 1090, 1110 (9th Cir. 2010).
Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we reverse.
    The district court erred in excluding Dr. Blandón-
Gitlin’s testimony on coerced confessions. Expert testimony
is admissible if it will “help the trier of fact to understand the
evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” Fed. R. Evid.
702(a). “Whether testimony is helpful within the meaning
of Rule 702 is in essence a relevance inquiry.” Hemmings v.
Tidyman’s Inc., 285 F.3d 1174, 1184 (9th Cir. 2002). “Our
case law recognizes the importance of expert testimony
when an issue appears to be within the parameters of a
layperson’s common sense, but in actuality, is beyond their
                 TEKOH V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES                    5

knowledge.” United States v. Finley, 301 F.3d 1000, 1013
(9th Cir. 2002). 1
    Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony was relevant to Tekoh’s
case, as she would have opined on how the text of
confessions can indicate classic symptoms of coercion, and
would have explained to the jury how Deputy Vega’s tactics
could elicit false confessions. She planned to testify that the
apologies and excuses in Tekoh’s statement demonstrate that
Deputy Vega utilized minimization tactics—classic
coercion—to elicit incriminating admissions. She would
also explain to the jury the significance of Deputy Vega’s
use of a false evidence ploy when he told Tekoh there was
video evidence. A jury could benefit from Dr. Blandón-
Gitlin’s expert knowledge about the science of coercive
interrogation tactics, which Deputy Vega employed here,
and how they could elicit false confessions. See United
States v. Halamek, 5 F.4th 1081, 1088–89 (9th Cir. 2021)
(affirming admission of psychological phenomenon where it
would help explain that phenomenon to the jury). Because
false confessions are an issue beyond the common
knowledge of the average layperson, “jurors would have
been better equipped to evaluate [Tekoh’s] credibility and
the confession itself had they known of the identified traits
of stress-compliant confession and been able to compare
them to [his] testimony.” Lunbery v. Hornbeak, 605 F.3d
754, 765 (9th Cir. 2010) (Hawkins, J., concurring).

1
   Defendants-Appellees only contest whether Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s
testimony would be helpful to the jury—i.e., its relevance—and do not
contest that her testimony is based upon sufficient data or that her
conclusions are the product of reliable principles and methods. See
Redlightning, 624 F.3d at 1110.
6              TEKOH V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES

    The district court incorrectly concluded that Dr.
Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony would impermissibly vouch for
or buttress Tekoh’s credibility. Her testimony, however,
was not that Tekoh was credible, but “assum[ing] the
veracity” of Tekoh’s claims, she concluded that Deputy
Vega used these coercive tactics. Expert testimony that
corroborates a witness’s testimony is not a credibility
assessment or improper buttressing, even if it implicitly
lends support to that person’s testimony. Cf. Reed v.
Lieurance, 863 F.3d 1196, 1209 (9th Cir. 2017) (“While [a]n
expert witness is not permitted to testify specifically to a
witness’[s] credibility, we know of no rule barring expert
testimony because it might indirectly impeach the credibility
of an opposing party’s testimony.” (internal quotation marks
and citations omitted)).
    Appellees argue that Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony
lacked probative value because the falsity of the confession
was not at issue in the case. According to the appellees and
the dissent, even if the jury believed the confession was true,
it was “well-equipped” to conclude that Deputy Vega’s
tactics—racial slurs, threats of deportation, approaching
Tekoh with his hand on his gun—were unconstitutionally
coercive without Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony. But
despite the apparent obviousness of the coercion, at the
second trial, the defendants repeatedly disputed that Vega
used coercive tactics. And the expert’s proposed testimony
was not simply about false confessions, but the coercive
questioning tactics that lead to them. Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s
testimony would help the jury better understand coerced
confessions, including why just asking questions can be
coercive, issues that are beyond a layperson’s understanding
and not necessarily obvious, even in these circumstances.
See Lunbery, 605 F.3d at 763 (Hawkins, J., concurring)
                TEKOH V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES                 7

(stating that it is “hard to imagine anything more difficult to
explain to a lay jury” than the fact that the alleged perpetrator
could have confessed to a crime he did not commit).
     Because the circumstances surrounding Tekoh’s
confession go to the heart of his case, excluding expert
testimony contextualizing his account was crucial to the
outcome. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for a new
trial on Tekoh’s Fifth Amendment claim.
    REVERSED AND REMANDED.

MILLER, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
    The jury had to decide who was telling the truth about
the circumstances of Tekoh’s interrogation by Deputy Vega:
Tekoh or Vega. The proffered expert testimony of Dr.
Blandón-Gitlin would not have been helpful to the jury in
making that decision, so the district court did not abuse its
discretion in excluding it.
    To be admissible, expert testimony must “help the trier
of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in
issue.” Fed. R. Evid. 702(a). Expert testimony is not helpful
if the factfinder is “well equipped” to determine the issue
“‘without enlightenment from those having a specialized
understanding of the subject involved in the dispute.’”
Fortune Dynamic, Inc. v. Victoria’s Secret Stores Brand
Mgmt., Inc., 618 F.3d 1025, 1040–41 (9th Cir. 2010)
(quoting Fed. R. Evid. 702 advisory committee’s note).
    In this case, no specialized understanding was necessary
to assess the evidence of the allegedly coercive
interrogation. As the district court explained, “this matter
came down to a question of credibility”—if the jury believed
8              TEKOH V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES

Tekoh’s account of the interrogation, then it would have
been obvious that “the confession was indeed coerced.”
Tekoh said that when he tried to leave the room, Vega rushed
at him, stepped on his toes, and threatened, “I’m about to put
your black ass where it belongs, about to hand you over to
deportation services, and you and your entire family will be
rounded up and sent back to the jungle.” According to
Tekoh, Vega then ordered him to sit down, handed him a pen
and paper, and dictated a confession for him to write. When
Tekoh hesitated, Vega allegedly put his hand on his gun. It
does not take an expert to see how that would have been
coercive.
    According to Tekoh, an expert might have explained that
he was also subject to other, subtler pressures. But every
situation is theoretically susceptible to some sort of expert
analysis. It does not follow that such an analysis would be
helpful to the jury, especially not when common sense will
do. The jury did not need a psychologist to explain that an
officer’s putting a hand on his gun would be threatening, any
more than it needed a podiatrist to explain that an officer’s
stepping on a suspect’s toes would be painful.
    Even if a general discussion of coerced confessions had
a role to play in this case, that is not what Dr. Blandón-Gitlin
would have offered. Rather, she intended to testify about the
coercion of Tekoh’s confession in particular. Courts
“routinely exclude” testimony by psychological experts who
seek to apply general concepts to individual witnesses,
because such testimony often amounts to a credibility
assessment. Yu v. Idaho State Univ., 15 F.4th 1236, 1246
(9th Cir. 2021) (Miller, J., concurring) (citing cases).
Credibility is a matter for the jury to decide, so “[a]n expert
witness is not permitted to testify specifically to a witness’
credibility or to testify in such a manner as to improperly
               TEKOH V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES                9

buttress a witness’ credibility.” United States v. Candoli, 870
F.2d 496, 506 (9th Cir. 1989).
    Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony would have violated that
principle. She expressly assumed “the veracity of Mr.
Tekoh’s accounts of events,” thus assuming that his
confession was coerced. She would have invoked her
expertise to press that conclusion on the jury. “From a
scientific and professional perspective,” she opined, “the
content of [Tekoh’s] statement, as a key piece of evidence of
the alleged crime[,] is of poor quality.” She described part of
Tekoh’s confession as a “textbook example” of
“minimization tactics,” or “face-saving excuses the
interrogator creates” that “exponentially increase false
confessions.” In so doing, she foreclosed the alternative
interpretation that Tekoh’s “face-saving excuses” were just
that—efforts to minimize the seriousness of an offense he
had actually committed. Jurors have little room to draw their
own conclusions about who is telling the truth when an
expert uses the contested statement as the “textbook
example” of falsity.
    In any event, even if there were some basis for admitting
Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony, that does not mean that the
district court abused its discretion in excluding it. See
General Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 143 (1997).
Under the abuse-of-discretion standard, we must uphold the
district court’s decision “unless the ruling is manifestly
erroneous.” Id. at 142 (quoting Spring Co. v. Edgar, 99 U.S.
645, 658 (1879)). Tekoh has not come close to meeting that
standard, so I would affirm the judgment of the district court.