Hypnosis in the Case of Sirhan Sirhan

Re “New Life in Sirhan Defense,” Commentary, Jan. 31: As Sirhan Sirhan’s attorney, I must correct the record about hypnosis in the Sirhan case. Herbert Spiegel MD, a New York psychiatrist and world-renowned expert on hypnosis who teaches at Columbia University, has concluded that Sirhan was probably programmed through hypnosis to fire a gun in the presence of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy without knowing what he was doing and without being able to recall either the events or the process of being programmed.

I am continuing to advance Dr. Spiegel’s conclusions in currently pending federal habeas corpus proceedings on Sirhan’s behalf. Sirhan has consistently maintained that he cannot recall the assassination and has no memory of being programmed. Most of the books about the RFK case support the “Manchurian Candidate” defense, but this defense was not presented at Sirhan’s trial. Instead, the late Grant Cooper, Sirhan’s trial attorney, told the jury that Sirhan was a paranoid schizophrenic -- a diagnosis that Dr. Spiegel maintains is contradicted by the defendant’s high level of hypnotizability.

Lawrence Teeter

Los Angeles