Court Opinion

ID: 9541878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:29:17.069655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:05:07.029977
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
concurring in the result.
No one doubts that hypnosis can be extremely valuable. Hypnosis can “play a crucial role” in reviving the memory of trial witnesses. Henderson, Admissibility of Hypnotically Enhanced Testimony: Have the Courts Been Mesmerized?, 6 J. Legal Med. 293, 298 (1985). Beginning in the 1970’s, medical, psychiatric, psychological, and dental associations officially endorsed hypnosis as a therapeutic technique. Id. at 296. Hypnosis is used widely in such areas as anesthesia, psychosomatic medicine, psychotherapy, enhancement of recall, and augmenting performance. Id.
The trouble for courts is that hypnotized subjects are susceptible to suggestion, may tend to confabulate details they don’t really remember, and may be unable to distinguish what they really remember from what they merely think they remember. Sprynczynatyk v. General Motors Corp., 771 F.2d 1112, 1119-20 (8th Cir.1985). The question is whether these drawbacks are so serious that the benefits of hypnosis must be lost.
Some jurisdictions hold that hypnotically aided testimony is admissible. Id. at 1120 & n. 9. They rely on the traditional tools of our adversary system — cross-examination, expert testimony, and cautionary jury instructions — to separate accurate from inaccurate testimony. Ruffra, Hypnotically Induced Testimony: Should It Be Admitted? 19 Crim.L.Bull. 293, 299 (1983). Other jurisdictions exclude such evidence as inadmissible per se. Sprynczynatyk, 771 F.2d at 1120 & n. 10. They do so because of a belief that the risk of the witness giving, and the jury accepting, untruthful testimony is unacceptably high. Id. at 1121. Today, Alaska adopts this approach.
Total admissibility and total inadmissibility, however, are not the only alternatives. A number of jurisdictions have adopted an approach between these two extremes which guards against the risks created by hypnotically aided testimony while preserving its benefits. The Supreme Court of New Jersey first espoused this position in State v. Hurd, 86 N.J. 525, 432 A.2d 86 (N.J.1981).1 The court held that “hypnoti*141cally-induced testimony may be admissible if the proponent of the testimony 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 92. In my opinion, Alaska should take the middle ground.
The court in Hurd outlined a multi-part approach for determining whether the hypnosis in a particular trial was a reliable procedure. First, the trial judge should consider the appropriateness of hypnosis for the kind of memory loss at issue. Id. at 95. For example, hypnosis is reasonably reliable in reviving normal recall where the person’s inability to remember results from a pathological reason such as a trauma, but not where the witness has no recollection at all, has a motive for not remembering, or where hypnosis is used as a tool for verifying conflicting accounts. Hence, the judge should admit the evidence in the former circumstances, but not in the latter. This preliminary inquiry would minimize the risk of inaccurate testimony by restricting the use of hypnosis to the cases where it will do the most good.
Second, proponents of hypnotically aided evidence should observe strict procedural safeguards. They should:
(1) demonstrate that a licensed professional psychiatrist or psychologist conducted the hypnosis;
(2) demonstrate that the psychiatrist or psychologist was independent from the prosecution and the defense;
(3) record the information given to the hypnotist prior to the hypnotic session;
(4) obtain a recorded, detailed description of the facts as the subject remembers them before the hypnosis;
(5) record all contacts between the hypnotist and the subject; and
(6) exclude all persons except the hypnotist and the subject during all phases of the hypnotic session.
Id. at 96-97. These safeguards would eliminate the possibility of leading witnesses by suggestion to tell the story that the police or prosecution would like them to tell. They do not eliminate the possibility of unintentional confabulation, but they minimize this danger by requiring a record of the pre-hypnosis testimony.
Third, the proponent of the evidence must establish admissibility by “clear and convincing evidence.” Id. at 97. This standard places a heavy burden on those who wish to rely on hypnosis. By doing so it guards against unreliable evidence.
The Hurd tests and standards need not be exclusive. For example, I would add the requirements that the trial judge give (1) the opponent of the evidence wide latitude in cross-examining the witness, and (2) the jury a cautionary instruction which warns of the potential dangers of hypnosis. See Brown v. State, 426 So.2d 76, 93 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1983). Probing cross-examination will help the opponent of the hypnosis evidence to overcome its dangers while a cautionary instruction will alert the jury to the existence of those dangers.
*142The approach of the majority suffers from the disadvantage of excluding hypnotically aided evidence in every case, no matter how great the probable reliability of the evidence. The majority opinion brushes aside the middle approach with the contention that it is time consuming, requires judges to become hypnosis experts, and creates a risk of non-uniform results.
None of these arguments withstands scrutiny. First, it is difficult to understand how the Hurd approach requires any more time or expertise than other complex medical or scientific questions before the court. As science moves forward the courts cannot stand still merely because the issues are more complex and time intensive. Second, the problem with the majority opinion is precisely that it mandates a uniform approach — inadmissibility—without regard to the circumstances of each case. In some cases, hypnotically induced testimony will be extremely probative and in others it will not. The flaw in the majority opinion is that it fails to offer an approach which can discriminate between the two situations.
A per se rule of inadmissibility creates a double standard. Proneness to suggestion and confabulation are natural traits encountered in unhypnotized witnesses. Any witness may testify incorrectly with a good deal of confidence — from the inveterate liar to the witness who is “convinced” of his or her accuracy. Distortion also occurs during the questioning of a witness because (1) the witness feels pressure to answer in spite of gaps in his or her memory, and (2) the examiner unwittingly signals the “correct” answers. Hurd, 432 A.2d at 94-95. Furthermore, research shows that witnesses become more confident in their testimony as time progresses “in spite of the natural tendency of memory to decay.” Id. at 95.
It is unrealistic to insist that hypnotically aided testimony be free from these faults. All that can be expected is that hypnotical; ly aided testimony will be comparable in reliability to ordinary testimony. Alaska can achieve this goal without totally barring hypnotically induced testimony from the trial process.2
Because the hypnotic procedures in the present cases were not conducted by a licensed, independent practitioner, I agree that the evidence in question should not be admitted. I thus concur in the result, but not in the reasoning of today’s majority opinion.

. Other courts have also adopted a "middle of the road” approach. See, e.g., Sprynczynatyk v. General Motors Corp., 771 F.2d 1112 (8th Cir. *1411985); United States v. Charles, 561 F.Supp. 694 (S.D.Texas 1983); Brown v. State, 426 So.2d 76 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1983); State v. Iwakiri, 106 Idaho 618, 682 P.2d 571 (1984); People v. Smrekar, 68 Ill.App.3d 379, 24 Ill.Dec. 707, 385 N.E.2d 848 (1979); Pearson v. State, 441 N.E.2d 468 (Ind.1982); House v. State, 445 So.2d 815 (Miss.1984); State v. Brown, 337 N.W.2d 138 (N.D.1983); State v. Beachum, 97 N.M. 682, 643 P.2d 246 (1981), cert. quashed by 98 N.M. 51, 644 P.2d 1040 (1982); State v. Long, 32 Wash.App. 732, 649 P.2d 845 (1982); State v. Armstrong, 110 Wis.2d 555, 329 N.W.2d 386 (Wis.), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 946, 103 S.Ct. 2125, 77 L.Ed.2d 1304 (1983); see also Clay v. Vose, 771 F.2d 1 (1st Cir.1985) (hypnotically induced testimony is admissible in case where witness gave pre-hypnotic identification before a carefully instructed jury which heard expert testimony on the validity of hypnosis); United States v. Valdez, 722 F.2d 1196 (5th Cir.1984) (post-hypnotic testimony may be admissible in some cases where procedural safeguards are followed, but not where hypnotized subject identifies a person for the first time whom he has reason to know is a suspect); United States v. Keplinger, 776 F.2d 678 (7th Cir.1985) (court declines to adopt a per se rule prohibiting post-hypnotic testimony); United States v. Narcisco, 446 F.Supp. 252 (E.D.Mich.1977) (identification of suspect after hypnosis should not be excluded because it did not create a substantial likelihood of misidenti-fication).

. A per se rule of inadmissibility is also inconsistent with the Alaska approach to witness competency. The per se rule amounts to a judgment that all witnesses who have had their memory refreshed through hypnosis are incompetent to testify. Yet, the rule in Alaska is that: "The question of competency of a particular witness to testify is ... left in the sound discretion of the trial judge.” McMaster v. State, 512 P.2d 879, 881 (Alaska 1973).