LEGAL ISSUES RELATED TO THE USE OF PSI

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00792R000600190001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 1, 1984
• Content Type: RP

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LEGAL ISSUES RELATED TO THE
USE OF PSI
AUTHOR
STANLEY L. SCHALL
DATE
MAY 1984
SG1J
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You
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ARMY review(s) completed.
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I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to the following
persons who assisted in the critiquing and editing of this paper:
Jack Heuck, Aerospace Engineer, McDonnell Douglas Corporation;
Jose Pulido, Ventura County, California District Attorney
Criminal Investigator; and Jack Sherry, former newspaper editor
and retired corporate vice president of a large printing firm.
A special thank you is also extended to my typist, Lisa Christopher,
who provided the rough drafts and final copy.
-Stanley L. Scha l
May 2984
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During the past severs] years, there has been an increase in the
reported use of psychics in national security matters as well as
in assisting federal and local law enforcement. The psychics
provide nonconventional clues. These clues added to the success
of solving major crimes. ate: psychics do not solve crimes.
The cases are put together by regular investigators. But, when
used appropriately, psychics become an adjunct tool similar to
any other legal .iuvesi:igativc technique. This paper is an over-
view raising questions about legal and ethical issues involved in
the use of psi by local law enforcement and the judicial process.
Psi is defined as a term to designate collectively paranormal
events and/or faculties, including ESP, clairvoyance, psycho-
kinesis, and survival phenomena.
From the preliminary investigation through incarceration,
including the judicial procedures, psi has proven it can
enhance the ability of many investigators to reduce case
management time and to increase the apprehension rate.
This is particularly true in difficult cases. However, the
possibility of violating a defendant's rights may also be
present. Because there is insufficient case law to provide
necessary guidelines, our-four years of study show a need
to establish a-dialogue of the issues and ethics regarding
the use of psi within the criminal justice system.
There are two tracks on which we will focus: (a) the use
of persons who have psi abilities and are not members of a
law enforcement agency, and (b) those persons with psi
abilities who are sworn personnel of an agency.
Psi contributors are treated as informants. They must
establish their credibility with a high degree of "hits,"
or verifiable observations, which are then corroborated
by an investigator. Once the psi input is independently
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substantiated, it and the resulting evidence may be intro-
duced into court. But this must occur within the framework
of the justice system. Search and arrest warrants and the
rules of evidence must be meticulously adhered to in order
to avoid'compromising a?defendant's rights. An otherwise
diligently prepared.case can be lost at perhaps the pre-
trial motion phase-for example in discovery-or somewhere
down the process during the appeal stage if the rules of
evidence prove to have been. violated.
To protect the psychic informant who may or may not qualify
as an expert witness, a judge may interview the informant
in the presence of the prosecuting attorney and the investi-
gating officer in'an "in camera" hearing. Neither the
defense counsel nor the defendant are present during this
session. If the judge:determines-that an informant's data-
does not have a direct bearing on either the guilt or
innocence of the defendant, the psychic informant need not
be identified in court or be subject to examination. This
is contingent on'the investigator corroborating the data and
developing independent leads which result in the arrest.
If a psychic is a consultant for an agency, he/she then
becomes an instrument of the agency and is subject to the
same legal requirements in the collection of evidence as is
required of-sworn members of the agency. This can pose a
problem, for example, when a consultant uses remote viewing
abilities to enter a location mentally, without consent of
the owner/renter of the property, or without a search
warrant.
Does such action constitute a legal search?
So, as we begin to explore some ramifications of the use of
psi, we begin to identify many areas of concern. To reduce
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the problems, wG rcco.~ur~end an agency involved with
psychics develop a specific policy on how to handle psychics
and screen each ]nl nrm^nt /ron~j~lt?n+ as carcf zl y as they
would their own personnel. Such steps should preclude the
compromise of an investigation or embarrassment to the agency.
It is our opinion that to reduce or minimize problems when
using persons outside an agency as an adjunct, investigators
should learn to develop their own psi abilities. Such educa-
tion and training should enhance the legal process and reduce
the potential for errors in case preparation. However, we
must not overlook the possibility of an investigator who
might zealously sacrifice agency ethics and thus violate a
defendant's rights to obtain a conviction.
The United States Supreme Court is currently reviewing the
Exclusionary Rule which requires evidence be obtained in
compliance with the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The courts cannot accept evidence obtained in an unreasonable
search and. seizure regardless of how relevant the evidence is
to the case. (Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S.383, 34 S.Ct.
341,.58 L.Ed.652 (1914).) Since that case, the courts have
adopted guidelines to assure law enforcement that, by
adhering to proscribed procedures, its. search and seizure
would be considered reasonable. The general guidelines
permit a search to be justified when any of these apply:
(1) consent is given; (2) a search warrant has been issued;
(3) an emergency exists; (4) there is probable cause; or
(5) a limited search may be conducted when incidental to
arrest.
The United States Supreme Court may relax the Exclusionary
Rule to include a statement called "good faith on the part of
law enforcement when conducting a search." This means that
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if an error is made in the search and seizure of evidrnrr.
the case may still go forward, provided the error was made
without. prejudice toward the defendant.
One critical concern in the Fourth Amendment is the Reasonable
Expectation of Privacy (REP). This guarantees everyone the
right to be free from unreasonable intrusion. This right is
personal to every citizen. It can exist almost any time and
any place as long as: (a) the individual has indicated that
he personally expects privacy, and (b) his expectation of
privacy is objectively reasonable under the circumstances.
When a person is in custody, whether in a police car or in
jail, he can expect what he says may be recorded. This also
relates to someone in his own home being interviewed by law
enforcement. The probability of what he says being recorded
is a distinct legal possibility. Therefore, a serious issue
is: will, someone's rights be violated if, after-they have
been given a Miranda warning, they elect to remain silent
and. subsequently a psychic, either in or outside the interro-
gating rooms, uses ESP to provide the police officers with
incriminating evidence.
Would this violate a defendant's rights?
Let's look at another example. The psychic is present during
interrogation of a burglary suspect who may also have been
responsible for a brutal rape/murder of a seven-year-old.
The suspect is told the psychic is present, that no. matter
how he tries to evade questions, the psychic will be able to
read his mind. The suspect waives his rights and admits to
the burglary but not to the other crimes, and the psychic
confirms the suspect's statements.
Is this a form of intimidation by law enforcement? Does
it thereby make the statement of admission illegal?
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Auutfl r example of the use of psychics is in the area of
psychometry (the ability to obtain facts about the history
of an object, including persons and events connected with
+; j,cua11y by touching or ho](3ng the object) An
investigator provides photos, bloody clothing and a ring
worn by a murder victim. He wants to know who the suspect
is. The psychic provides details of the crime scene and
other pertinent information known by the investigator.
Thus, information provided by the psychic is immediately
corroborated or disproved. The psychic then describes in
detail., circumstances surrounding the death, perhaps includ-
ing a description of the suspect and his car as well as the
location of additional evidence such as the murder weapon.
Does such information violate any law or rules of evidence
if the investigator corroborates the data and obtains a
search warrant listing the psychic/informant in the affidavit
supporting the request for the warrant? -
One last example before we present specific concerns:
Narcotic'investigators-have received hearsay information from
an anonymous informant about several attorneys who have pro
vided large sums of money to finance the purchase of cocaine
for distribution. They have also set up dummy corporations
to hide their profits. The investigation has taken several
months without sufficient evidence being developed to deter-
mine if, in fact, a crime has been committed. The investiga-
tors are aware of a meeting of the alleged conspirators in a
high-rise building which has a great deal of electronic
security to prevent listening devices from being used. They
contact a person who has demonstrated remote viewing abilities.
This person is successful and provides data to open the inves-
tigation. -He obtains the points of distribution, dates and
times of delivery of the cocaine and the names of the dummy
corporations.
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118 the form tint nit __ ed ' ? :! Lf' Z'7ewingr and subse-
quently corroborated by law enforcement, a violation of the
Fourth Amendment?
The reader should not consider the above examples as fantasies.
In fact, they occurred almost as written, with the exception
of the last case. The cases were slightly modified to pre-
clude violating the confidential information. With these
circumstances in mind, let us now approach the specific issues
and ethics of the use of psi in local law enforcement.
Let's review the case of People v. Egan, 141 Cal.App.3d
798 (1983). "Binocular-aided observations of marijuana grow-
ing in open fields, made from an airplane, are legal as long
as the plane is at a lawful altitude (at least 500 feet above
ground level). This is'so even though the marijuana cannot
"truly" be identified without the use of the binoculars. YA
defendant simply has no reasonable expectation of privacy
as to the viewing of his crops by aerial surveillance."
However, in the case of People v. Cook, Sup.Ct.No.CRN-7500
(Cal.Ct.App.4th filed February 16, 1984)(4 Crim.No.15349),
it was stated that aerial flyovers of property where precau-
tion was taken to hide the contraband violates REP. Cook's
residence was in a semi-rural area and he was growing mari-
juana in his back yard. He took precautions to protect his
illegal activity by hiding the evidence from general observa-
tion. The flyover was designed to locate the contraband from
the air. The court. stated that since law enforcement did
not routinely fly over Cook's house as a normal patrol proce-
dure, they violated his REP. The court further stated that
"the Fourth Amendment guards the privacy of human activity
from aerial no less than terrestrial invasion."
There are other cases that state evidence obtained by a
person using one or more of the five senses in observing
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something coming from an open apartment house window while
standing outside on public property does not violate the
defendant's REP.
Now let's take a look at the psychic investigator who uses
remote viewing to obtain evidence of a tax fraud taking place
in a major gambling casino. The suspects are talking at a
public roof-top restaurant and exchange papers regarding a
skimming operation and the washing of money through a bank
in another state. The investigator, through his natural
abilities, projects his mind to their table and is able to
listen in on their conversation as if he were present. There
apparently is no case law to preclude this kind of search and
seizure of information since the suspects' meeting took place
in the open without taking steps to safeguard their conversa-
tion. In this case the "aerial flyover" is the investigator's
mind and the only enhancement is his or her own natural
abilities.
The California Peace Officers Legal Handbook of 1983, defines
probable cause to arrest as "a. set of facts which would cause
a person of ordinary care and prudence to honestly believe
and strongly suspect that the person to be arrested is guilty
of a crime." in other words, to make a valid arrest without
a warrant, enough factual information is needed to make an
average, reasonable person-who has the same training and
experiencebelieve or strongly suspect that an individual
is guilty of a crime. People v. Price, 137 Cal.App.3d 90
(1982).
A psychic informant who has freely and voluntarily provided
quality information in the past. states that.she was reading
someone.'s mind at a supermarket and that the person was buy-
ing groceries to store for the kidnapping of the chief
executive officer of a multi-national corporation. She
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followed the person to his car and obtained the license
number and description of the vehicle. There is a passenger
in the vehicle. The psychic again uses ESP. She believes
the passenger is also involved in the kidnapping plot. Her
information. along with the suspects' descriptions is turned
over to law enforcement. In this case, one of the suspects
threw away the store receipt which the psychic retrieved.
However, the crime lab was unable to obtain fingerprints.
Law enforcement subsequently learns that the kidnapping has
not yet taken place, but the car is rented to a known felon.
The store receipt is given to the psychic who uses psycho-
metry and provides a. series of leads. The leads are confirmed
by the law enforcement unit. Sufficient information is then
obtained through conventional police methods to arrest the
suspects as they drive to carry out their plan.
Is the original evidence provided by the psychic grounds to
develop probable cause? Will it hold up in court?
California Evidence Code s 1042(b) states that where a
search is made pursuant. to a warrant valid on its-,face, the
defense is not entitled to disclosure of the informant in
order to attack the legality of the search or the admissi-
bility of the evidence obtained. Section 1042(b) uses as
a standard for disclosure whether the informant is a material
witness on the issue of guilt and whether there is a reason-
able possibility that nondisclosure might deprive the
defendant of a fair trial. This is set forth in case law:
People v. Williams, 51 Cal.2d 355, 359 (1958); People v.
Garcia, 67 Cal.2d 830, 839 (1967).
if the psychic informant believes that a known child moles-
ter has just taken a seven-year-old girl to his mountain
cabin where he contemplates rape and eventually murder,
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and identifies the suspect's van and the first three digits
of the license number, it would be considered an emergency
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had been reported missing and then run their sex offenders
through the files of the Division of Motor vehicles to
ascertain if he owns a van with the reported first three
digits. If this information is verified and county real
estate records confirm the ownership of the property by the
suspect, the officers could either obtain a search warrant
for the child or use the exigent circumstances to prevent
the crimes of rape and murder. It appears that events in
this scenario would require identifying the informant. Once
the psychiclinformant took the stand for eventual cross,-
examination by defense counsel, the prosecution would first
have to establish the credibility of his informant which may
be difficult. To prove this, there should be statistics
to show that the psychic's statements are far beyond the
degree of probability of guessing and that the ps'ychic'has
been used successfully in the past to assist in providing
nonconventional clues to. solve major crimes.
A psychic is driving by a residence and sees a male about
25 years old standing behind an unlocked chain link fence.
The psychic uses his ESP and believes the male is thinking
about selling 15 kilos of cocaine and the receiving of more
than i$600,000 in cash from a transaction that will take
place in 48 hours. The psychic, who has established him-
self over the past several years as a reliable informant,
is now a consultant for a police agency. He contacts the
agency about the narcotics. Since the consultant is presently
acting as an agent-for the police department, he must follow
all of the rules of evidence regarding search anc seizure.
In the case of Pcople v. Mendoza, 122 Cal.App.3d Supp.12
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(1981) the court ruled that u police officer had the right
to enter the unlocked front gate and talk to Mendoza who
was aL proxi"matel y '75 feet from i ~r front o f +he for co . Tho
officer wanted to talk to him about his dealing in heroin.
The officer observed Mendoza as being under the influence
of drugs. The court stated in a 2 to 1 decision that they
"viewed the fence as being more for 'discouraging dogs,
children, handbill deliverymen and others from walking
across the front lawn and flower beds' than for the purpose
of exclusing the public. Therefore, Mendoza had no reason-
able expectation of privacy in his front yard and it was
proper for the officer to enter the unlocked gate and
approach him."
In our. scenario, instead of the psychic/consultant walking
through the gate, he used his mind to obtain the information
from his vehicle which was across the street from the sus-
pect's residence. We now must decide what is REP as it
relates to the thought process of an individual in open
view but on his own property. I have not yet found any case
law to cover this.
Fate Magazine reported in its November 1979 issue "that the
South Gate, California Police Department used a psychic who
gave-a police artist a-description of a suspect in the dis-
appearance of a.seven-year-old that occurred October 22,
1978. The officers recognized the suspect, who was known by
the missing boy's family, and arrested him. The suspect .
confessed to murdering the boy as well as two others. Judge
William E. McGinley of the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled
'that the use of the psychic in the case was merely an inves-
tigative tool and cannot be relied upon by the officer in
connection with justifying the arrest. However, it may be
used to follow up additional leads.' It was evaluated as
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a legal arrest."
During the five years that we have been conducting our
research, we have met with municipal court, superior court
and appellate court jurists who provided informal guidance.
Each stated, independent of one another as none knew we
had interviewed the others, that as long as law enforcement
personnel corroborated information provided by a psychic
prior to asking for arrest and search warrants, the evidence
could be introduced into court.
High technology has influenced our courts in their decisions
in reference to wire taps. The following was reported in
the Los Angeles Times on March 25, 1984: "Police can record
cordless telephone conversations heard over an FM radio and
use the recordings as evidence," the Kansas Supreme Court
ruled. The court overturned a lower court ruling suppressing
taped conversations of Timothy and Rosemarie Howard of
Hutchinson, Kansas, charged with possession of cocaine and
conspiracy to. sell marijuana. The high court said conversa-
tions picked up by one of Howard's neighbors on a ham radio
are oral communications and are not covered by federal wire-
tapping laws. Testimony indicated the cordless telephone
owner's manual states "transmissions can be picked up on FM
radio." Such communications eliminate reasonable expectation
of privacy (REP).
N
What about the person who uses a public phone booth that
does not have an enclosure and a psychic "hears" about a
major crime through ESP or remote viewing abilities? Would
the high courts rule in favor of introducing such evidence?
We are rapidly approaching the use of another aspect of high
technology, the expanding intuitive functions. It is only a
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;uaLLG.L of time until these new techniques will be used on a
daily basis as an adjunct tool for law enforcement. Society
and the courts will soon be judging these new techniques.
iiioSC w1. Lh LiiiL~ expanding field must openly
discuss the pros and cons of these techniques and develop
effective guidelines to assure individual rights are not
violated for the sake of a conviction.
Movies such as "Blue Thunder" suggested that sophsticated
technology presents some disturbing possibilities of aerial
police surveillance. The reference here is when the heli-
copter hovered outside a window of a very tall building and
used an electronic monitoring device to listen in on a
conversation behind a wall. Thus, the potential for abusing
reasonable expectation of privacy is very real. Today's
appellate and supreme courts are dealing with simply aerial
flyovers and the federal-state marijuana eradication program.
Let's go one. step further and. state that we now have a cadre
of law enfordement personnel who have successfully demonstrated
the use of psi and remote viewing abilities to arrest and-
convict cocaine and heroin distributors as well as interna-
tional terrorists.
It has been alleged that certain foreign intelligence agencies
are utilizing such concepts to collect classified information.
If our courts are just now dealing with aerial flyovers,
how will they cope with the expanding functions of the mind
and the legal issues of using psi and remote viewing
in apprehending criminals?
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
California Evidence Code ? 1042(b)
California Peace Officers Handbook (1983 ed.)
Fate Magazine, November 1979 issue
Los Angeles Times, March 25, 1984
People v. Cook, Sup.Ct.No.CRN-7500 (Cal.Ct.App.4th,
filed February 16, 1984)(4 Crim.No.15349)
People v. Egan, 141 Cal.App.3d 798 (1983)
People v. Garcia, 67 Cal.2d 830, 839 (1967)
People v. Mendoza, 122 Cal.App.3d Supp.12 (1981)
People v. Price, 137 Cal.App.3d 90 (1982)
People we Williams, 51 Cal.2d 355, 359 (1958)
Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S.383, 34 S.Ct.341,
58 L.Ed.652 (1914)
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