Court Opinion

ID: 9577720
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:37:20.204623+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:06.987087
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.
J. — I concur in the judgment. Under the circumstances in this case, the prosecutrix’ testimony was subject to objection because it was the product of a hypnotic session conducted by a deputy district attorney rather than by a trained professional who was wholly unaffiliated with law enforcement.
I am unable, however, to support an absolute rule rendering inadmissible all hypnotically induced testimony without regard to the safeguards under which the hypnosis occurred. Consistent with recent authority and critical coimmentary, such testimony should be admissible if elicited under adequate safeguards including requiring that (1) the hypnosis is conducted by a trained, independent psychiatrist or psychologist who in writing is supplied with only sufficient factual background necessary to conduct the session; (2) the hypnosis is videotaped or otherwise recorded for purposes of subsequent review; (3) no persons other than the hypnotist and his subject are present; and (4) the hypnotist obtains a written description of the subject’s prior description of the event for comparison purposes. (See State v. Hurd (1981) 86 N.J. 525 [432 A.2d 86, 96-97]; Note, The Admissibility of Testimony Influenced by Hypnosis (1981) 67 Va.L.Rev. 1203, 1230-1232.) If the procedures *73used are free of suggestion and, in the discretion of the trial court, the probative value of the testimony is not outweighed by its potential for prejudice, I would admit it.
As stated by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Hurd, “we believe that a rule of per se inadmissibility is unnecessarily broad and will result in the exclusion of evidence that is as trustworthy as other eyewitness testimony.” (P. 94; accord, Note, supra, at p. 1233.) I share that belief.