[2] Forensic hypnosis has been considered for several uses including: hypnotic memory enhancement, evaluating a defendant's mental state, determining if a subject is telling the truth, preparing a witness for trial, determining if one is feigning trauma or a mental injury, and supporting the defense in a criminal case.
While this comparison was popular with the public, it caused concern for academic psychologists who went on to research hypnosis and attempt to determine its appropriate uses in law enforcement and whether the mind was analogous to a recording device.
[3] Prior to State v. Harding in 1968, courts looked at hypnotic testimonies skeptically and often declared that its use had not gained general acceptance, citing the Frye Standard.
[4] An additional issue with the admission of forensic hypnosis is that when admitted it would have the status of a witness testimony which the jury would be asked to evaluate.
With the expanded use of forensic hypnosis came claims about the technique's truth-telling capabilities, particularly in popular scientific journals which influenced how the public viewed its dependability.
Academic psychologist's interest in challenging some of the popular beliefs surrounding hypnosis and memory led to a general increase in psychological experimentation and new procedures for analysis of these experiments.
[1] Forensic Hypnosis faced a series of serious legal challenges in the 1980s with People v. Shirley (1982) standing out as a case which directly attacked the method's reliability.
Mr. Farnell, a hypnotist without a formal psychology background, assisted her in retrieving a detailed story from her memory in which she woke in her apartment to find the defendant yielding a large knife and forcing her to have sex with him.
However, there were multiple inconsistencies in the story she produced through hypnosis and what she had previously reported leading the court to declare her testimony inadmissible.
One of the greatest contributors to this trend was that the job of therapists is to comfort their patients and encourage them to confront their abuser; however, this does not allow for the rigorous fact-checking of evidence which courts require.
The FMSF created a scientific board which was looking to disprove the legitimacy of claims made from hypnotically recovered memories.
Loftus had previously done experiments which led her to conclude that the fundamental understanding of memory by the supporters of forensic hypnosis as a type of recording device was incorrect.
Subjects are more susceptible to changing how they remember events during hypnosis and from suggestive questioning, nonverbal cuing, and mixing reality with fantasy.
[3] Ultimately, the use of hypnosis in pretrial work faces issues with how the accuracy of the future trial may be impacted and is thus discouraged today.
While this process is known to produce inaccuracies, it has also been shown to help police find leads to other evidence which warrants the cost of verifying or disproving information.