Editorial: You’re getting sleepy …

Friday, July 9, 1999 | 9:15 a.m.

The Las Vegas Metro Police Department is hesitant about using hypnosis as a crime-gathering tool -- as well it should be. Hypnosis has a history of sometimes being unreliable and, considering that it could be used to obtain a conviction and send a man to prison for the rest of his life, you have a recipe for disaster in the making.

As the Sun's Jace Radke reported Wednesday, Nevada is just one of two states that expressly legalize hypnosis for pre-trial evidence gathering. So far, however, "forensic hypnosis" has not been embraced by Metro Police. "I'm cautious because hypnosis is an inexact science, and we don't want to start treating it as an exact science like fingerprints and DNA," Lt. Tom Monahan of Metro Police's sexual assault detail told Radke. The only time Monahan has used hypnosis was to see if a witness could remember a license plate number, but the technique was unsuccessful.

While hypnosis hasn't caught on widely with Metro Police, it has been successfully promoted by Paul Kincade, a Washoe County reserve deputy sheriff who helped draft Nevada's forensic hypnosis law in 1997. Kincade said he's helped police use hypnosis in dozens of cases, including a 1998 rape case in the Northern Nevada town of Yerington. The victim was shown a lineup but couldn't identify her attacker. After she was hypnotized, Kincade claims, she was able to recall specific details, including the bumps on her attacker's face. After hypnosis, the woman picked out the suspect, which was part of the evidence that led to the man's conviction.

Supporters of hypnosis use what are admittedly compelling examples of crime victims who are unable to remember details of their attackers until after hypnosis. But detractors of this practice also note that there have been instances of people being falsely accused after a victim underwent hypnosis. What is disturbing about hypnosis is its suggestive powers, allowing a hypnotist to lead the witness' subconscious to report something that never actually happened. Hypnosis should not be viewed any better than the so-called "lie detector tests," which actually should be called "sweat-detector tests."

This does not mean that hypnosis doesn't have redeeming qualities and might have some applications as an alternative medicine. The problem is that there have been instances of false accusations prompted by hypnosis. The bottom line is that police should not rely on highly suspect information -- posing as scientific evidence -- to obtain convictions.