Memory Restored or Confabulated by Hypnosisâ•flIs it Competent?

Courts have established that when an eyewitness to an event under litigation, who has suffered loss of memory as the result of a physical blow, thereafter recovers his memory following yet another physical blow, the witness is competent to testify to the event.' Moreover, courts generally hold that an eyewitness's memory can be refreshed-in or out of court-by use of any device which will get the job done. As expressed by Judge Kalodner: "Anything may in fact revive a memory: a song, a scent, a photograph, an allusion, even a past statement known to be false." Yet now, within the past months, at least four state supreme courts have decided that when the refreshment is accomplished by hypnosis, the hypnotized subject is an incompetent witness as to the areas explored under hypnosis." Eyewitness testimony is not especially reliable in the best of