Court Opinion

ID: 9394030
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-11 22:01:10.38044+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:56.945708
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        MAY 11 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

TERENCE B. TEKOH,                               No.    18-56414

                Plaintiff-Appellant,            D.C. No.
                                                2:16-cv-07297-GW-SK
 v.

COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; DENNIS                   MEMORANDUM*
STANGELAND, Sergeant; CARLOS
VEGA, Deputy,

                Defendants-Appellees,

and

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

                Defendants.

                On Remand from the United States Supreme Court

Before: MURGUIA, Chief Judge, and WARDLAW and MILLER, Circuit Judges.
Dissent by Judge MILLER.

      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

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
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 knowledge.” United States v. Finley, 301 F.3d 1000,

1013 (9th Cir. 2002). 1

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

                                           2
      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).

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.

                                          3
      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

                                          4
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)

(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.

                                           5
                                                                             FILED
Tekoh v. County of Los Angeles, No. 18-56414                                 MAY 11 2023
                                                                         MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
MILLER, Circuit Judge, dissenting:                                         U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

      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 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

                                            1
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

                                           2
testify in such a manner as to improperly 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

                                           3
U.S. 645, 658 (1879)). Tekoh has not come close to meeting that standard, so I

would affirm the judgment of the district court.

                                         4