In People v. Bedessie, the Court of Appeals recently held that testimony of experts in disciplines like psychiatry, psychology and other social sciences may be admitted in evidence to test claims of false confessionsif the expert testimony is tied to the particular facts of the case.1
Bedessie involved a teacher’s assistant who was convicted of sexually abusing a 4-year-old based on a confession she claimed was false. Khemwattie Bedessie testified in her defense at trial. She claimed that she falsely confessed to the crime only after a detective promised it would not be disclosed and threatened her with two options: “to tell the truth and go home, or to go to the Rikers Island jail.” Bedessie proffered scientific expert testimony to attack the confession’s reliability. The court held that although such testimony is generally desirable and admissible in evidence for this purpose, it was properly excluded here because the testimony was not actually tailored to the specifics of Bedessie’s confession.
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