State v. Peoples

EXUM, Justice.

The crux of the present case concerns the admissibility of testimony by a witness who undergoes hypnosis prior to testifying. Defendant challenges the trial court’s admission of a witness’s hypnotically refreshed testimony and of a video tape recording of the hypnotic session. We find error in both rulings and reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.

I

In the early morning hours of 26 May 1980, Bruce Crockett Miller participated in the armed robbery of the Borden Chemical Plant in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He, along with two other men, took several buckets of almost pure…