NCJ Number
90525
Date Published
1983
Length
244 pages
Annotation
Discussion focuses on the characteristics, capabilities, and limitations of hypnosis; the scope of its potential applications in a criminal justice context; its dangers as a forensic and investigative tool; and how the courts are and should be regulating its use in criminal cases.
Abstract
The more common forensic applications of hypnosis are: to develop leads; to retrieve meaningful traumatic memories that have been repressed; to improve memory for significant details; and to evaluate a defendant's state of mind, the presence of specific criminal intent, and sanity or capacity to stand trial. Forensic misuses of hypnosis include deliberately creating, shaping, or distorting testimony and producing a confession. Currently, most courts treat pretrial hypnosis as another type of memory-jogging device. The courts have unanimously refused to permit a witness to testify while under hypnosis. They have also unanimously rejected testimony obtained while a witness was under pretrial hypnosis when such testimony is offered as substantive proof of the truth of the matters testified to. The most common reasons given for such rejection are the general unreliability of hypnosis as a fact-finding device or the status of the testimony as hearsay. Legal and psychological glossaries, a table of cases and case index, and name and subject indexes are provided. About 325 bibliographic entries are listed.