People v. Hughes

Decision Date05 July 1983
Citation466 N.Y.S.2d 255,59 N.Y.2d 523,453 N.E.2d 484
Parties, 453 N.E.2d 484 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Appellant, v. Kirk HUGHES, Respondent.
CourtNew York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
OPINION OF THE COURT

WACHTLER, Judge.

The primary question on this appeal concerns the admissibility of a rape victim's testimony when she has undergone hypnosis sometime prior to trial for the purpose of refreshing or restoring her memory of the incident. The trial court held that the pretrial use of hypnosis did not affect the admissibility of the victim's testimony but only presented a credibility question for the jury. The Appellate Division, 88 A.D.2d 17, 452 N.Y.S.2d 929, reversed and ordered a new trial. The court held that hypnosis has not been generally accepted in the scientific community as a reliable method of restoring memory and that therefore the victim's posthypnotic recollections should have been suppressed. The court noted however that on the new trial the victim could testify concerning events recalled prior to hypnosis. The prosecutor has appealed.

I

On the evening of May 19, 1978 a man broke into the victim's Syracuse apartment, dragged her from her bed and raped her in the yard behind her home. During the attack she was choked and beaten. On June 8, 1978 the defendant was arrested and subsequently indicted for rape, assault and burglary in connection with the incident.

Prior to trial the defendant moved to suppress the victim's identification. In support of the application he noted that the victim's hospital records indicated that she was unable to recall what happened. It was also noted that after her release from the hospital the police had arranged for her to be hypnotized by a psychologist and under hypnosis she apparently was able to identify the defendant as her assailant. The defendant contended that hypnosis "has as its core and implementation a suggestibility" and that the victim's identification was therefore unduly suggestive as a matter of law. In the alternative he requested a hearing pursuant to United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149.

The trial court granted the motion to the extent of ordering that a hearing be held. That court adopted what it found to be the general, if not universal, rule throughout the country at that time, that "hypnotically induced recollection, is not inadmissible as a matter of law". The trial court held however that "where the hypnosis is conducted by or in conjunction with or under the direction of law enforcement personnel, it is clearly an identification proceeding within the meaning of CPL 710.30 and 710.20" (99 Misc.2d 863, at p. 871, 417 N.Y.S.2d 643). The court thus ordered a hearing to determine whether, under the totality of the circumstances, the procedures used were so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to the very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification" (99 Misc.2d, at p. 872, 417 N.Y.S.2d 643).

Following that decision the defendant asserted as an additional ground for suppression, a contention that the hypnosis had impaired his right of confrontation. He stated: "Once the hypnosis was held, as the victim cannot separate the result of the hypnosis from an independent recollection, there could never be a right of cross-examination at that point."

The testimony at the hearing shows that in 1978 the victim lived with her husband and four-year-old son in a two-story house occupied by several families. The victim and her family occupied one of two apartments on the second floor; the defendant and his female companion, Dianne, occupied the other. The two couples were well acquainted, having resided in the same building for some time. On occasion Dianne babysat for the victim's son. Indeed several times the defendant himself had done so.

The victim's husband worked at a nearby factory. On Friday, May 19, 1978, he worked the evening shift beginning at 6 p.m. When he returned from work shortly after 2 o'clock on Saturday morning he found his wife lying on the landing between the two apartments. She was not wearing any clothes and her body was covered with bruises, dirt and grass. She said that she had been raped.

The victim's husband called the police and she was taken to a local hospital where she remained for several days. Immediately following her admission she was sent for a time to the intensive care unit when it was determined that her blood pressure was low and she was having difficulty breathing. She was diagnosed as suffering from traumatic injuries, particularly to her head and neck. The laboratory reports also indicate that she had been sexually attacked.

The victim originally gave no information to the authorities. An officer who arrived at the scene testified that she was hysterical and incoherent. At the hospital she refused to see Officer George Rendle, the investigator assigned to the case, when he attempted to interview her in the intensive care unit. Later in the day she informed him that she did not know what happened. She made similar responses when questioned by hospital personnel. However, when her sister visited her and asked on several occasions who had done this to her she finally stated: "I saw Kirk". Kirk is the defendant's first name.

On that same day Officer Rendle had independently concluded that the defendant was the prime suspect after making inquiries in the neighborhood and learning from another officer that the defendant had recently been arrested and charged with a rape committed in April. That afternoon he questioned the defendant at police headquarters located in the Public Safety Building in Syracuse. At that time the officer noticed and photographed scratches on the defendant's back. The defendant also made a potentially incriminating statement which was subsequently suppressed on the ground that he had not been advised of all of his rights. Later the officer went to the defendant's apartment where Dianne turned over certain items of clothing belonging to the defendant. That evening the victim's husband saw a photograph of the defendant in Officer Rendle's file and learned that the police suspected the defendant of the rape. However at the officer's request he agreed not to inform his wife of this.

On May 22 Officer Rendle returned to the hospital with Officer Denise Banazek and found the victim more responsive. He testified that on this occasion the victim told him that on the night of the attack she put her son to bed early and went to bed herself sometime before 9 o'clock. She left the door unlocked for her husband who did not have his key. She next recalled someone grabbing her by the throat and dragging her down a flight of stairs. She also recalled that there was another person outside talking to her attacker. This other person did not hurt her and ran away while the attack on her continued. She said that her attacker wore eyeglasses and had smooth hair which was not very long.

On May 24 Officer Rendle spoke to the victim again, this time at her sister's home. The officer testified that during this interview she stated "it wasn't clear, things were not quite clear but [she] kept remembering Kirk. She stated this occurred while she was in the hospital and her head stopped spinning". They also discussed hypnosis and the victim agreed to try anything that would help her recall the man who had attacked her. That same day the officer called Dr. Jay M. Land, a clinical psychologist in private practice, and told him that he was investigating a rape or assault in which the victim could not identify her attacker. He also indicated that there was a suspect but at the doctor's request did not identify him or reveal any of the details of the investigation. The psychologist agreed to meet with the victim and an appointment was made for the interview. Sometime prior to that meeting the victim's husband told her that the police suspected the defendant of the rape.

The first hypnotic session took place at the Public Safety Building on June 7. A preliminary meeting between Dr. Land, the victim and her husband was not recorded. The remainder of the session, lasting approximately an hour and a half, was recorded on video tape. At the victim's request her husband was present. Officer Rendle and the officer operating the recording equipment also attended. In response to one of Dr. Land's questions before the induction, the victim stated that she knew the police had a suspect but she hoped it wasn't the defendant. Dr. Land then proceeded to hypnotize her and asked her to imagine that she was watching a television on which she could see what had occurred in her room on the night of May 19. This proved unsuccessful and she was awakened. However she agreed to try again, was again placed in a hypnotic state and this time identified the defendant as her attacker. When she was awakened she recalled identifying the defendant and confirmed the identification. At that point the recording equipment was turned off. She was asked several questions by Officer Rendle and gave him an affidavit identifying the defendant as the man who had raped and beaten her.

Subsequently the victim read in the newspapers about the possible effects of prehypnotic suggestions and decided to consult a psychiatrist, Dr. Goldfarb, to make sure she was not being forced to remember something that was not true. That led to three meetings with Dr. Goldfarb, all of which were recorded on audio tape. At the first meeting on June 20 she informed the psychiatrist that she had been attacked and raped and was attempting to recall a man's name. She also told him that she had been hypnotized...

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    • James Publishing Practical Law Books Archive New York Objections - 2018 Contents
    • 2 Agosto 2018
    ...A scientiic procedure need not be unanimously endorsed by the scientiic community as long as it is generally accepted. People v. Hughes , 59 N.Y.2d 523, 466 N.Y.S.2d 255 (1983). Scientiic evidence must be based on methodology that is generally accepted in the scientiic community. People v. ......
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    ...A scientiic procedure need not be unanimously endorsed by the scientiic community as long as it is generally accepted. People v. Hughes , 59 N.Y.2d 523, 466 N.Y.S.2d 255 (1983). Scientiic evidence must be based on methodology that is generally accepted in the scientiic community. People v. ......
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