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DENIAL, WITHOUT A HEARING, OF DEFENSE MOTION TO PRESENT EXPERT TESTIMONY ON THE SCIENCE OF FALSE CONFESSIONS WAS AN ABUSE OF DISCRETION.

The First Department, in a full-fledged opinion by Justice Kapnick, over an extensive two-justice dissent, determined, under the facts, the trial court abused its discretion when it denied, without a hearing, defendant's motion to present expert opinion evidence concerning the science of false confessions:

First, there is no dispute that Dr. Drob concluded that defendant exhibited traits such as, “borderline intellectual functioning, cognitive, social and emotional immaturity, severe deficits in reality testing and deficits in the capacity to understand the actions and intentions of others, deficits in his capacity to cope with interpersonal stress, anxiety, depression, dependency, passivity and a desire to please others, and a concomitant tendency to rely on others for direction and support.” There can also be no dispute that these particular mental conditions and personality traits are ones that research studies have linked to false confessions, and that the Court of Appeals has recognized this link (Bedessie, 19 NY3d at 159 …).

Second, certain conditions of the interrogation suggest that defendant could have been induced to confess falsely to the crimes at issue. The defense urges that the detectives' interrogation employed a variety of techniques that scientific research has shown to be highly correlated with eliciting false confessions. …

Finally, this is a case … that turns on the accuracy of defendant's confessions.  People v Evans, 2016 NY Slip Op 03988, 1st Dept 5-19-16

CRIMINAL LAW (DENIAL, WITHOUT A HEARING, OF DEFENSE MOTION TO PRESENT EXPERT TESTIMONY ON THE SCIENCE OF FALSE CONFESSIONS WAS AN ABUSE OF DISCRETION)/EVIDENCE (CRIMINAL LAW, DENIAL, WITHOUT A HEARING, OF DEFENSE MOTION TO PRESENT EXPERT TESTIMONY ON THE SCIENCE OF FALSE CONFESSIONS WAS AN ABUSE OF DISCRETION)/FALSE CONFESSIONS (CRIMINAL LAW, DENIAL, WITHOUT A HEARING, OF DEFENSE MOTION TO PRESENT EXPERT TESTIMONY ON THE SCIENCE OF FALSE CONFESSIONS WAS AN ABUSE OF DISCRETION).EXPERT OPINION EVIDENCE (CRIMINAL LAW, DENIAL, WITHOUT A HEARING, OF DEFENSE MOTION TO PRESENT EXPERT TESTIMONY ON THE SCIENCE OF FALSE CONFESSIONS WAS AN ABUSE OF DISCRETION)

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