Terence Tekoh v. County of Los Angeles ( 2023 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 11 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
TERENCE B. TEKOH, No. 18-56414
Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No.
2:16-cv-07297-GW-SK
v.
COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; DENNIS MEMORANDUM*
STANGELAND, Sergeant; CARLOS
VEGA, Deputy,
Defendants-Appellees,
and
LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF'S
DEPARTMENT; DOES, 1 to 10,
Defendants.
On Remand from the United States Supreme Court
Before: MURGUIA, Chief Judge, and WARDLAW and MILLER, Circuit Judges.
Dissent by Judge MILLER.
Following a federal trial, Terence Tekoh appealed the district court’s
decisions to (1) instruct the jury that a § 1983 claim could not be grounded in a
Miranda violation alone, and (2) exclude the testimony of Tekoh’s coerced
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
confessions expert, Dr. Iris Blandón-Gitlin. We ruled in favor of Tekoh on the
Miranda issue, but the Supreme Court reversed that decision. See Vega v. Tekoh,
142 S. Ct. 2095, 2101 (2022). On remand, Tekoh concedes that his Miranda claim
is no longer viable, but maintains that he is entitled to a new trial on his Fifth
Amendment coercion claim because the district court improperly excluded Dr.
Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony.
We review a district court’s decision to exclude expert testimony for abuse
of discretion. United States v. Redlightning, 624 F.3d 1090, 1110 (9th Cir. 2010).
Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we reverse.
The district court erred in excluding Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony on
coerced confessions. Expert testimony is admissible if it will “help the trier of fact
to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” Fed. R. Evid. 702(a).
“Whether testimony is helpful within the meaning of Rule 702 is in essence a
relevance inquiry.” Hemmings v. Tidyman’s Inc., 285 F.3d 1174, 1184 (9th Cir.
2002). “Our case law recognizes the importance of expert testimony when an issue
appears to be within the parameters of a layperson’s common sense, but in
actuality, is beyond their knowledge.” United States v. Finley, 301 F.3d 1000,
1013 (9th Cir. 2002). 1
1
Defendants-Appellees only contest whether Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony
would be helpful to the jury—i.e., its relevance—and do not contest that her
2
Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony was relevant to Tekoh’s case, as she would
have opined on how the text of confessions can indicate classic symptoms of
coercion, and would have explained to the jury how Deputy Vega’s tactics could
elicit false confessions. She planned to testify that the apologies and excuses in
Tekoh’s statement demonstrate that Deputy Vega utilized minimization tactics—
classic coercion—to elicit incriminating admissions. She would also explain to the
jury the significance of Deputy Vega’s use of a false evidence ploy when he told
Tekoh there was video evidence. A jury could benefit from Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s
expert knowledge about the science of coercive interrogation tactics, which Deputy
Vega employed here, and how they could elicit false confessions. See United
States v. Halamek, 5 F.4th 1081, 1088–89 (9th Cir. 2021) (affirming admission of
psychological phenomenon where it would help explain that phenomenon to the
jury). Because false confessions are an issue beyond the common knowledge of
the average layperson, “jurors would have been better equipped to evaluate
[Tekoh’s] credibility and the confession itself had they known of the identified
traits of stress-compliant confession and been able to compare them to [his]
testimony.” Lunbery v. Hornbeak, 605 F.3d 754, 765 (9th Cir. 2010) (Hawkins, J.,
concurring).
testimony is based upon sufficient data or that her conclusions are the product of
reliable principles and methods. See Redlightning, 624 F.3d at 1110.
3
The district court incorrectly concluded that Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony
would impermissibly vouch for or buttress Tekoh’s credibility. Her testimony,
however, was not that Tekoh was credible, but “assum[ing] the veracity” of
Tekoh’s claims, she concluded that Deputy Vega used these coercive tactics.
Expert testimony that corroborates a witness’s testimony is not a credibility
assessment or improper buttressing, even if it implicitly lends support to that
person’s testimony. Cf. Reed v. Lieurance, 863 F.3d 1196, 1209 (9th Cir. 2017)
(“While [a]n expert witness is not permitted to testify specifically to a witness’[s]
credibility, we know of no rule barring expert testimony because it might indirectly
impeach the credibility of an opposing party’s testimony.” (internal quotation
marks and citations omitted)).
Appellees argue that Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony lacked probative value
because the falsity of the confession was not at issue in the case. According to the
appellees and the dissent, even if the jury believed the confession was true, it was
“well-equipped” to conclude that Deputy Vega’s tactics—racial slurs, threats of
deportation, approaching Tekoh with his hand on his gun—were unconstitutionally
coercive without Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony. But despite the apparent
obviousness of the coercion, at the second trial, the defendants repeatedly disputed
that Vega used coercive tactics. And the expert’s proposed testimony was not
simply about false confessions, but the coercive questioning tactics that lead to
4
them. Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony would help the jury better understand
coerced confessions, including why just asking questions can be coercive, issues
that are beyond a layperson’s understanding and not necessarily obvious, even in
these circumstances. See Lunbery, 605 F.3d at 763 (Hawkins, J., concurring)
(stating that it is “hard to imagine anything more difficult to explain to a lay jury”
than the fact that the alleged perpetrator could have confessed to a crime he did not
commit).
Because the circumstances surrounding Tekoh’s confession go to the heart
of his case, excluding expert testimony contextualizing his account was crucial to
the outcome. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for a new trial on Tekoh’s Fifth
Amendment claim.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
5
FILED
Tekoh v. County of Los Angeles, No. 18-56414 MAY 11 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
MILLER, Circuit Judge, dissenting: U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
The jury had to decide who was telling the truth about the circumstances of
Tekoh’s interrogation by Deputy Vega: Tekoh or Vega. The proffered expert
testimony of Dr. Blandón-Gitlin would not have been helpful to the jury in making
that decision, so the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding it.
To be admissible, expert testimony must “help the trier of fact to understand
the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” Fed. R. Evid. 702(a). Expert
testimony is not helpful if the factfinder is “well equipped” to determine the issue
“‘without enlightenment from those having a specialized understanding of the
subject involved in the dispute.’” Fortune Dynamic, Inc. v. Victoria’s Secret Stores
Brand Mgmt., Inc., 618 F.3d 1025, 1040–41 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting Fed. R. Evid.
702 advisory committee’s note).
In this case, no specialized understanding was necessary to assess the
evidence of the allegedly coercive interrogation. As the district court explained,
“this matter came down to a question of credibility”—if the jury believed Tekoh’s
account of the interrogation, then it would have been obvious that “the confession
was indeed coerced.” Tekoh said that when he tried to leave the room, Vega rushed
at him, stepped on his toes, and threatened, “I’m about to put your black ass where
it belongs, about to hand you over to deportation services, and you and your entire
1
family will be rounded up and sent back to the jungle.” According to Tekoh, Vega
then ordered him to sit down, handed him a pen and paper, and dictated a
confession for him to write. When Tekoh hesitated, Vega allegedly put his hand on
his gun. It does not take an expert to see how that would have been coercive.
According to Tekoh, an expert might have explained that he was also subject
to other, subtler pressures. But every situation is theoretically susceptible to some
sort of expert analysis. It does not follow that such an analysis would be helpful to
the jury, especially not when common sense will do. The jury did not need a
psychologist to explain that an officer’s putting a hand on his gun would be
threatening, any more than it needed a podiatrist to explain that an officer’s
stepping on a suspect’s toes would be painful.
Even if a general discussion of coerced confessions had a role to play in this
case, that is not what Dr. Blandón-Gitlin would have offered. Rather, she intended
to testify about the coercion of Tekoh’s confession in particular. Courts “routinely
exclude” testimony by psychological experts who seek to apply general concepts to
individual witnesses, because such testimony often amounts to a credibility
assessment. Yu v. Idaho State Univ., 15 F.4th 1236, 1246 (9th Cir. 2021) (Miller,
J., concurring) (citing cases). Credibility is a matter for the jury to decide, so “[a]n
expert witness is not permitted to testify specifically to a witness’ credibility or to
2
testify in such a manner as to improperly buttress a witness’ credibility.” United
States v. Candoli, 870 F.2d 496, 506 (9th Cir. 1989).
Dr. Blandón-Gitlin’s testimony would have violated that principle. She
expressly assumed “the veracity of Mr. Tekoh’s accounts of events,” thus
assuming that his confession was coerced. She would have invoked her expertise to
press that conclusion on the jury. “From a scientific and professional perspective,”
she opined, “the content of [Tekoh’s] statement, as a key piece of evidence of the
alleged crime[,] is of poor quality.” She described part of Tekoh’s confession as a
“textbook example” of “minimization tactics,” or “face-saving excuses the
interrogator creates” that “exponentially increase false confessions.” In so doing,
she foreclosed the alternative interpretation that Tekoh’s “face-saving excuses”
were just that—efforts to minimize the seriousness of an offense he had actually
committed. Jurors have little room to draw their own conclusions about who is
telling the truth when an expert uses the contested statement as the “textbook
example” of falsity.
In any event, even if there were some basis for admitting Dr. Blandón-
Gitlin’s testimony, that does not mean that the district court abused its discretion in
excluding it. See General Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 143 (1997). Under the
abuse-of-discretion standard, we must uphold the district court’s decision “unless
the ruling is manifestly erroneous.” Id. at 142 (quoting Spring Co. v. Edgar, 99
3
U.S. 645, 658 (1879)). Tekoh has not come close to meeting that standard, so I
would affirm the judgment of the district court.
4