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Memory Restored Or Confabulated By Hypnosis—Is It Competent?, James E. Beaver
Memory Restored Or Confabulated By Hypnosis—Is It Competent?, James E. Beaver
Seattle University Law Review
This article examines the scientific basis of hypnosis and concludes that previously hypnotized witnesses are incompetent to testify concerning matters discussed under hypnosis. Unbiased examination of scientific literature discloses that persons under hypnosis are highly motivated to please the hypnotist and therefore are likely to fantasize rather than accurately recall lost memories. After hypnosis these false impressions are fixed as true and the witness is unshakable on cross-examination. Therefore, the McCormick relevancy test is inadequate, and hypnosis tainted testimony, like other scientific evidence, must meet the stricter Frye standard before being presented to the finder of fact. Hypnosis presently does …
Nonproduction Of Witnesses As Deliberative Evidence, James E. Beaver
Nonproduction Of Witnesses As Deliberative Evidence, James E. Beaver
Seattle University Law Review
The chief practical difficulty today, as always, lies in the particular application of a mass of evidentiary rules, in determining the bearing of various principles upon a given evidentiary issue of fact here and now. Nowhere has this situation continued truer than with reference to rules about evidentiary spoliation. "Indeed, after reading all there is on the subject in a recent voluminous text-book, one may well be bewildered, owing to the collection of crude, inadvertent and contradictory material."' As a result, the "request to charge which more frequently than any other is made in improper form is that dealing …