How Reliable Is Hypnosis In VA Murders Case?

How Reliable Is Hypnosis In VA Murders Case?

BY JOHN BARTON Police Reporter

Defense lawyers for two women accused of killing patients at Ann Arbor’s VA Hospital will be given the chance to order mental tests for a key prosecution witness.

But, contrary to some reports issued Friday, those tests probably will not be conducted until after the witness, Richard Neely, testifies for the second time on video tape in a secret session that will be held next week in South Bend, Ind.

The confusion arises from a 13-page ruling issued late Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pratt.

In his ruling, Pratt agreed that the defense team’s request for a psychiatric evaluation of Neely was “reasonable and should be acceded to by the government (prosecution).”

At the same time, however, Pratt ruled that the proposed psychiatric evaluation to determine Neely's credibility should not be one of the conditions set before the deposition is taken.

“The defendants' rights to confrontation and effective assistance to counsel will not be jeopardized if (the psychiatric evaluation) is not completed before the date of the deposition,” Pratt said.

Neely, a 62-year-old retired factory worker, who lives in Osceola, Ind., suffers bladder cancer, and federal prosecutors fear he may die before he can be called as a witness when the case comes to trial.

The trial is to begin Jan. 4 and could last four months or longer.

On April 22, in sworn testimony taken at South Bend, Neely pointed out a former nurse in the VA Hospital’s intensive care unit as being the last person he saw next to his bed when he experienced a sudden breathing failure.

The nurse he identified is Leonora Perez, 32. Perez and another former intensive care unit nurse, Filipina B. Narciso, 30, are charged with killing five patients and poisoning 10 others during July and August, 1975.

Federal prosecutors, led by Asst. U.S. Atty. Richard L. Delonis, charge the women murdered and poisoned the patients by injecting a powerful muscle-relaxing drug into their intravenous feeding devices.

Neely is named in a federal indictment handed down June 16 as one of the 10 patients the two former nurses allegedly poisoned.

But Neely’s identification of Perez came only after he was hypnotized three times by a New York psychiatrist-hypnotist, Dr. Herbert Spiegel.

Perez's defense lawyers, Edward R. Stein and Laurence Burgess, as well as Narciso's attorney, Thomas C. O'Brien, argue that a person under hypnosis is in a "highly suggestible state.” They also challenge the validity of Neely’s testimony while in a hypnotic trance because although Neely was hypnotized by Spiegel, the questioning was done by FBI agents.

Pratt, who will preside over the trial, apparently agrees at least in part and in principle, with the defense objections.

“It appears to this court," Pratt wrote in Thursday's opinion, “that it is arguable that Mr. Neely may have been rendered more amenable to suggestion by these techniques (hypnotism) and that certain lines of questioning may have suggested certain answers to him while he was in this altered state of consciousness.

“Subsequent to these (hypnotic) interviews it is arguable that Mr. Neely in part recanted his hypnotically-induced testimony in such a way as to raise doubts about the reliability of the hypnotic process used and as to his inherent credibility,” the judge added.

Pratt was quick to point out, however, that he did not mean to imply that Neely’s testimony was, in fact, tainted through suggestion while he was under hypnosis.

The judge said he meant "only that such an argument could be made by the defense, either in a challenge regarding competency, or in argument regarding (Neely’s) credibility.”

In the remainder of his ruling Pratt:

— Denied a defense request to cross examine Spiegel under oath and suggested the defense lawyers try to obtain a voluntary interview with the hypnotist.

— Granted in part a defense motion that the two FBI agents in charge of the case, Daniel Russo and Richard Guttler, be barred from sitting in on next week’s taped testimony session. The judge ruled that only one FBI agent should be present to assist the U.S. Attorney during questioning of Neely. The judge also ruled that the single agent should be the only one present during the deposition.

—Denied the defense request that Neely’s deposition be taped in Detroit. Pratt noted that Neely’s doctor says that a “prolonged trip to Detroit would be detrimental to his health and would entail too much physical stress on Richard Neely.”

— Agreed that the defense should have the right to be allowed further cross-examination of Neely at a later time, provided Perez and Narciso’s lawyers can show “need for such further cross-examination is based on newly discovered information.”