UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA DECLARATION 1. I, Daniel P. Brewn, of 997 Chestnut St. Newton, MA hereby declare and state as follows: 2. lam an Associate Clinical Professor in at Harvard Medical School at the Beth Israel -Deaconess Medical Center. In the course of my professional career I have been quali?ed as an expert witness on assessment, memory, memory for trauma, and the effects of suggestive in?uence in numerous state and federal jurisdictions I have never been disquali?ed. I am the senior author of a textbook, Memory, Trauma Treatment and the Law (Norton, 1999), which was the recipient of awards from 7 professional societies including the Manfred Guttniacher award for the ?outstanding contribution to forensic given jointly by the American Association and the American Academy of and the Law. I also served as an expert witness and consultant on three occasions for the prosecution at The International War Crimes Tribunal, The Hague, Netherlands. My expert testimony was adopted as the standard of evidence by the tribunal regarding the reliability of memory in extremely traumatized witnesses, and that standard has been upheld through two appeals. I have also served as an expert witness in the area of hypnosis. I have written four books on hypnosis, including a standard textbook, Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy (Erlbaum, 1986, co?authored with Erika From). I also wrote the current guidelines on forensic interviewing with hypnosis, which are in the current edition of he Comprehensive Textbook of It is with these quali?cations that I agreed to interview Mr. Sirhan B. Sirhan around his memory for the events leading up to and the evening of the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. 3. In May, 2008, I was instructed by the attorney for Mr. Sirhan B. Sirhan, William F. Pepper, to begin a series of interviews with Mr. Sirhan. One purpose of the interviews was to conduct a detgiled forensic assessment of Mr. Sirhan regarding his mental status. The purpose of the interview was to allow Mr. Sirhan the opportunity to develop a more complete memory, in a non?suggestive context, for the events ieading up to and of the night of the assassination. The central question Attorney Pepper asked me to render an expert opinion about is whether or not Mr. Sirhan was a subject of coercive suggestive in?uence that rendered his behavior at the time of the 6.1. 6.2. 6.3. 6.4. assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy involuntary and also made him amnesic for his behavior and role in the assassination. What follows are my expert opinions to a reasonable degree of certainty. Memory exploration consisted of a systematic step?wise approach according to current guidelines for non-suggestive interviewing. These steps included repeated free recall, followed by repeated recall plus context reinstatement (a procedure known as the Cognitive Interview), followed by a focused interview with non-suggestive, open-ended prompt questions, and lastly followed by free recall under hypnosis. While hypnotically refreshed testimony is inadmissable in certain state jurisdictions, and admissible in all federal jurisdictions, nevertheless, evidence gathered from the hypnotic inquiry was kept independent of the evidence derived from free recall and free recall plus context reinstatement. All the interviews conducted with Mr.Sirhan were conducted in the presence of Attorney Laurie Dusek, Mr. Pepper?s co-counsel. While the prison did not allow electronic recording of the interviews, all interviews were simultaneously recorded in writing by myself and Ms. Dusek to maximize accuracy of the record. I interviewed Mr. Sirhan and conducted a forensic assessment in 6, two?day sessions over a three-year span horn 2008?2010 on: 1. 8/ 8?19/08; 2. 10/20-21/08; 3. 12/7-9/08; 4. 8/26-28/09; 5. 5/9-10/10; and 6. 9/27?28/10. In all, over a threenyear period, I spent over 60 hours interviewing and testing Mr.Sirhan. The ?rst four visits were conducted at Corcoran Penitentiary and the last two visits were conducted at Pleasant Valley State Prison, both within the California Penal System. I also interviewed eyewitness Juan Romero, who had just shaken Senator Kennedy?s hand in the kitchen area at the moment of the assassination. In preparation for these interview sessions with Mr. Sirhan, I reviewed the following records and documentation: All FBI ?les on the investigation and Bl ?les on RF and selected LAPD files. Audiotapes of hypnotic interviews of Mr. Sirhan conducted by defense expert Dr. Diamond, provided by the RF archives, N. Dartmouth, MA. Test results, original Rorschach test transcript, and spiral notebooks allegedly written by Mr. Sirhan, as published in Robert Kaiser?s book RFK Must Press Inc (1970; 2008). Mr. Sirhan?s central Agile/unit health record, which contains his complete prison mental health record over the past 40 years. In the course of the interview process I administered the following forensic tests: 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.7 7.8 Dissociative Experiences Questionnaire; Dissociation Questionnaire; Somatic Dissociation Questionnaire; Peritraumatic Dissociative Experiences Questionnaire for the purpose of assessing a dissociative coping style and dissociative experiences in Mr. Sirhan. The Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnosis of Dissociative Disorders for the purpose of determining the presence of a major dissociative disorder. The Traumatic Stress Inventory (TSI) was used for the purpose of ascertaining any possible of posttraumatic stress disorder due to Mr. Sirhan?s childhood war exposure. Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale?Form A for the purpose of determining in a standardized, normative manner Mr. S'irhan?s level of responsiveness to hypnotic suggestion. Gudjonsson Compliance Questionnaire(GCQ) for the purpose of determining Mr. Sirhan?s level of social compliance and vulnerability to external suggestive in?uence. Rorschach hikblot Test scored for thought disorder using the Thought Disorder Index and the Exner Special Scores system for the purpose of determining if Mr. Sirhan ever had a formal thought disorder consistent with defense expert opinion at his trial that Mr. irhan was a paranoid schizophrenic. I also re?scored the original Rorschach Inkblot evidence submitted at trial according to modern scientific standards using the Thought Disorder Index and the Exner Special Scores system, as well as gave the evidence for a blind independent assessment to another expert in the Exner system. The Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnosis of Personality Disorders (SCID-II) Personality Questionnaire, the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ-B), Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2), and the Million Clinical Multiaxial Inventory for the purpose of determining the presence of a personality disorder. Hostility Checklist List for the purpose of assessing violence risk. Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) for the purpose (if ascertaining possible brain damage as a result of a fall from a horse and alleged head injury in 1966. Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale(GSS-l) and the Inventory of Childhood Memory and Imagination for the purpose assessing Mr. Sirhan?s vulnerability to external misinformation suggestions and internal factors associated with confabulation of memory. As a result of the extensive testing of personality factors associated with vulnerability to social in?uence I concluded the following: 8.l 8.2 8.3 Mr. Sirhan shows a variety of personality factors that are associated with high vulnerability to coercive suggestive in?uence. These factors include: 1. An extreme dissociative coping style; 2. Actual evidence of hypnotieally induced alter personality states; 3. Very high hypnotizability; and 4. High social compliance. This unusual combination of personality factors makes Mr. Sirhan the type of individual extremely vulnerable to coercive social in?uence. To a reasonable degree of certainty Mr. Sirhan?s uncharacteristic behavior and strong amnesia for that behavior on the night of the Senator Kennedy assassination is a combination of his very high hypnotizabilty, high compliance, a dissociative vulnerability on rare occasions to shift self?states in a manner that would cause him to act in an uncharacteristic way, a strong dissociative coping style, that would cause him to be ?out of it? and be confused and amnesic for such actions. Sirhan is also exactly the rare type of individual who could have been easily in?uencedfinduced by others to engage in uncharacteristic actions for which he would subsequently become amnesic. It is also possible that alcohol and or drug intoxication may have exacerbated Mr. Sirhan?s condition the night of the assassination, but according to the evidence neither alcohol levels nor a drug screen were ever taken. There is only his self?report of drinking four Tom Collins and feeling somewhat intoxicated. An extreme dissociative coping style. On the Peritraumatic Dissociative Experience QuestiOnnaire, a measure assessing the use of a normal dissociative coping style to deal with stress or trauma, Mr. Sirhan received a very high score of 43, well above the cut score of 15". predicting signi?cant use of dissociative coping strategies on the evening of the Senator Kennedy assassination. Simply put, Mr. Sirhan was ?out of it.? Actual evidence of hypnotically induced alter personality states. I gave Mr. Sirhan the more detailed structured interview for dissociative disorders?the ?gold standard? in assessment of dissociative disorders. According to the SCID-D Mr. Sirhan has a major dissociative disorder, dissociative disorder not?otherwise speci?ed (DDNOS). In subsequent direct interviews with Mr. Sirhanl directly observed Mir. Sirhan a number of times switch into at least one distinctively different alter personality state, a personality?state that responds in a robot-like fashion upon one and adopts the behavior of ?ring agun at a ?ring range. The alter personality state is heretofore referred to as ?range mode.? This altered personality state only occurs while Mr. Sirhan is in an hypnotic or I self-hypnotic state, and only in response to certain cues. This state never spontaneously manifests. While in this altered personality state Mr. Sirhan shows both a loss of executive control and complete amnesia. The diagnostic criteria for dissociative identity: disorder requires the presence of at least two or more distinct alter personality states. Since only one distinct self?state was observed Mr. Sirhan does not meet the full DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for disso ive identity disorder. This distinctive alter personality state is cue-specific andl pic?dependent, which is quite unlike the condition, dissociative identity disorder, wherein alter personality states manifest spontaneously. alter personality states are likely the product of coercive suggestive influence and hypnosis. 8.4 8.5 8.5 Very high 'hypnotizabilily. Since the possibility of Mr. Sirhan being in an hypnotic or self-hypnotic state at the time of the assassination was introduced by defense expert Dr. Diamond at Mr. Sirhan?s trial, 1 administered a standardized assessment of hypnotizabilty. Dr. Diamond hypnotized Mr. Sirhan and found him to be highly hypnotizable. Given the fact that no one has ever administered a normative, standardized measure of hypnotizability to Mr. Sirhan, I thought it would be important to do so. I gave Mr. Sirhan a generally accepted and empirically sound standardized measure of hypnotizability, namely the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale?Form A (using the head falling instead of the postural sway suggestion as the ?rst item). According to the published norms from the 1960s (the relevant time frame), Mr. Sirhan responded positively to ll of 12 suggestions, which places him in the ?very high? range of hypnotizability, i.e. in the top 7% of individuals. These test results establish, by standardized, normative comparison, that Mr. Sirhan is indeed very highly hypnotizable. With respect to Mr. Sirhan?s response to speci?c hypnotic suggestions on the SHSS-A, his response to a post?hypnotic suggestion to get up from his seat upon cue was compulsive. His response to a suggestion for post-hypnotic amnesia resulted in a dramatic display of complete amnesia for all speci?c hypnotic suggestions and for the fact of being hypnotized, until given a cue to release the post?hypnotic amnesia. His post hypnotic amnesia for suggestions given in or actions preformed under hypnosis is dramatic. have written four texts books on hypnosis, have taught hypnosis to over 3,000 professionals, and hate hypnotized over 6,000 individuals over a 40?year professional career. Mr. Sirhan is one of the most hypnotizable individuals I have ever met, and the magnitude of his amnesia for actions not under his voluntary in hypnosis is extreme, more than I have observed in many other highly hypnotizable individuals. High social compliance. I gave Mr. Sirhan the Gudjonsson Compliance Questionnaire(GCQ). The GCQ assesses ?an eagerness to please? others and ?avoidance of con?ict with people in authority.? Gudjonsson found that individuals with high compliance scores on the GCQ identify individuals especially vulnerable to making a coerced false confession in an interrogatory context, while individuals with low compliance scores (resisters) rarely give false confessions. Mr. Sirhan scored ll on the GCQ which places him in the moderately high compliance range. The mean score for individuals "likely to have given false confessions through interrogation is 14 (standard deviation 3.1). The mean score for normal college students is 7.8, standard deviation 4.1. Thus, Mr. Sirhan?s current score is nearly a standard deviation above the general population mean, and just within the range that identi?es individuals likely to be vulnerable to making a false confession in the context of a coercive interrogation. To a reasonable degree of certainty Mr. Sirhan?s degree of compliance explains why he is the type of who would go along with a defense strategy at trial in ways that did not best representhis interests. Furthermore, such high social compliance makes Mr. Sirhan exactly the type of individual most vulnerable to suggestive in?uence. 1 gave a number of forensic tests to determine Mr. Sirhan?s mental status. Mr. Sirhan does not have and never had paranoid schizophrenia. At the trial both the 5 8.6 8.7 defense and prosecution opined that Mr. Sirhan was a paranoid schizophrenic. That testimony was based primarily on a subjective interpretation of the Rorschach Inkblot Test. A modern scienti?c approach to the Rorscach Inkblot Test includes scienti?cally derived scdring systems to assess the presence or absence of a formal thought disorder, the primary diagnostic feature of schizophrenia. These scoring systems were not available 40 years ago at the time of Mr. Sirhan?s trial. I reaadministered the Rorschach Inkblot Test and scored it according to modern scienti?c standards using the original Thought Disorder Index and its abbreviated version as the Exner Special Scores. There was no evidence of formal thought disorder using either scoring system. I gave the current Rorschach protocol to an Exner expert to re-score blind, Without identifying data. That expert also found no evidence of thought disorder. i also re?scored the original Rorschach used at trial using the Thought Disorder Index and Exner Special Scores and found no evidence whatsoever of thought disorder. Mr. Sirhan at the time of the trial, and currently, shows no evidence of thought disorder. The opinion of schizophrenia at trial is simply incorrect. Mr.Sirhan did not and does not have a major mental illness. I administered a wide range of additional forensic tests to Mr. Sirhan to assess his mental status. All of the findings with respect to conditions show that he is normal and does not have a condition. A number of these tests have validity tests, which were all in the normal range. Mr. Sirhan?s report of is likely valid. Contrary to his prison records Mr. Sirhan does not meet sufficient diagnostic criteria for a personality disorder, nor is there evidence of violence risk. My negative ?ndings with respect to conditions in Mr. Sirhan has been corroborated by a recent independent forensic assessment by Dr. Camera of the Pleasant Valley Prison staff, as part of Mr. Sirhan?s parole request, who also found, using a number of the same tests I administered, no conditions and low violence risk in Mr. Sirhan. I also administered several tests that identify personality factors that might affect the accuracy of Mr. Sirhan?s memory. I found that Mr. Sirhan is neither highly memory suggestihle- nor has any significant internal-based tendency to confabulate memory. His memory for the events on the night of and leading up to the assassination based on non?suggestive free recall is likely to be reasonably accurate for gist. Mr. Sirhan was given the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale, a standardized measure of memory suggestibility. The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GS S?l) specifically measures individual differences in the personality trait of memory suggestibility using a standardized test with norms. He was read a story about a woman who goes on a vacation, gets her handbag robbed, and is interviewed by the police. Mr. Sirhan was asked for an immediate recall of the sporty and then another recall an hour later. After the delayed recall he was asked a series of questions about the story. Many of the questions contained misinformation, so as to assess the degree to which he incorporated this misinformation into his memory report. His immediate recall score of 15 (of 40 items) is in the low range, one standard deviation below the mean score. Mr. Sirhan?s 1-hour delayed memory is also poor. His score of 10 is one and a half standard deviations below 6 8.9 8.10 the mean score. Mr. Sirhan showed evidence of a remarkably poor memory for a complex event. His confabulation score was very low, indicating that what he recalled was generally accurate. His memory for the story decayed moderately over the one-hour delayed recall. With respect to memory suggestibility his Yield 1 (vulnerability to misinformation) score was 2 SD 3.3), which places him in the very low range of vulnerability to misinformation suggestions. His Yield 2 score (vulnerability to repeated misinformation in the context of emotional pressure) was 1 SD 3.4), which is extremely low. His Shift score (vulnerability to changing the memory report in the context of emotional pressure) was 1 SD 2.2) which places him in the very low range regarding vulnerability to changing him memory report in response to emotional pressure; His total suggestibility score was 3 SD 4.4), which places him in the very low range for total memory suggestibility. Overall, Mr. Sirhan?s responses on the memory suggestibility inventory demonstrates that he is in the very low range of memory suggestibility and as such that score would make him a low risk for the development of externally?suggested signi?cant memory distortion and/or false memories for complex events. His confabulation score on the was also low, which means that he is also a low risk for internally?based memory distortion. On the Inventory of Childhood Memory and Imagination?a measure of fantasy-proneness?he scored in the very low range (12 of 40 points). High fantasy-prone individuals, under certain conditions, confuse fantasy and memory, and thereby can self?generate signi?cant memory distortions andfor false memories. Mr. Sirhan does not show any evidence of a high fantasy?prone style that would cause him to do thisrisk for signi?cant memory distortion or false memories through self-generated confusion of fantasy and memory. The ?nding of very low memory suggestibility in Sirhan is quite remarkable given the fact that Mr. Sirhan has been exposed to many versions over the years of what may have happened on the evening of the Robert Kennedy assassination. Nevertheless, he is not the type of individual who is very prone to suggestively altering or distorting his memory for the event, even in the face of repeated information (or misinformation) about the event over time. Therefore, the repeated free recall conducted with Mr. Sirhan is not liker to have led to signi?cant memory distortion based either on suggestive in?uence nor internally-based confabulation of memory. As another test of Mr. Sirhan?s memory I explored Mr. Sirhan?s memory for two potentially verifiable events, namely the death of sister, and also his memory for the interviews and hypnosis conducted by Dr. Diamond. While Mr. Sirhan?s memory for these events of over 40 years ago was incomplete, it was accurate for gist, as compared against the historical record and against the Diamond audiotapes. After extensive review of defense expert interviews conducted on Mr. Sirhan in preparation" for his trial I concluded that Mr. Sirhan was never really given much of an opportunity to ?eely recall the events leading up to, or on the night of, the assassination; nor have non-suggestive interview techniques ever been utilized systematically to help 7 9.1 10. 10.1 10.2 improve his recall of the target event. After listening to Dr. Diamond?s hypnosis audio recordings of his interviews and hypnosis with Mr. Sirhan, as an expert in suggestive in?uence and hypnosis, I came to the conclusion that Dr. Diamond was unduly suggestive to Mr. Sirhan, in that Dr. Diamond systematically supplied speci?c suggestions to Mr. Sirhan to ?ll in the gaps of Mr. Sirhan?s memory for the day and evening of the assassination. Such intervieng methods would not meet any current standard of non-suggestive interviewing. Given Mr. Sirhan?s very low score on memory suggestibility on the and his high score on the Compliance Scale at the time I tested him, my ?ndings suggest that Mr. Sirhan is likely to have given a coerced-compliant, involuntary false confession. Given Mr. Sirhan?s very low scares on memory suggestibility I also conclude that Dr. Diamond?s repeated suggestions did not really affect Mr. Sirhan?s memory very much for the events in question. While Mr. Sirhan has been repeatedly exposed to lots of information and misinformation about his case over the years, his personality trait of generally low memory suggestibility means that it can. be reasonably expected that gist memory for the events assOciated with the assassination could be recovered without undue distortion by previous exposure to misinformation. As a result of the extensive interview process and the systematic exploration of M. Sirhan?s memory I was able to ascertain the following facts about Mr. Sirhan?s activities on the day and evening of the assassination: - M. Sirhan?s going to the Ambassador Hotel on the night of the assassination was not consciously planned. Mr. Sirhan did not know and could not have known that Senator Kennedy was going to pass through the kitchen area. Mr. Sirhan was led to the kitchen area by a- Woman after that same woman had received directions from an of?cial at the event. Mr. Sirhan did not go with the intent to shoot Senator Kennedy, but did respond to a speci?c hypnotic one given to him by that woman to enter ?range mode,? during which Mr. Sirhan automatically and involuntarily responded with a ??ashback? that he was shooting atia ?ring range at circle targets. At the time Mr. Sirhan did not know that he was shooting at people nor did he know that he was shooting at Senator Kennedy. Mr. Sirhan '?eely recalled going to the gun range during the day of the assassination. After that, early in the evening, he met a friend at Pasadena Community College shot pool with his friend. Mr. Sirhan asked the friend about having dinner and then about shooting more pool. The ?iend declined stating that he had other plans. Then, Mr. Sirhan stopped at Big Bob?s Restaurant ?to check out girls.? He saw a parade announcement regarding the anniversary of the Six Day War and went to the Wilshire area to look for the parade. On the way Mr. Sirhan passed a storefront campaign headquarters with a lot of people outside. Some guys spoke of a ?bigger party? at the Ambassador Hotel and mentioned that they were going to the Ambassador to look for girls. Based on this information Mr. Sirhan went to check out the party and look for girls. 10.3 The fact that Mr. Sirhan asked a friend to have dinner and continue playing pool does not suggest the motivation of an obsessed assassin planning to kill a presidential candidate that same evening. Additionally, the fact that after his friend left, Mr. Sirhan seemed lost and didn?t know what to do orexactly where to go does not suggest a clear plan to locate Senator Kennedy and shoot him. In fact, the boys at the storefront campaign headquarters suggested to Mr. Sirhan that they all go to the Ambassador Hotel to attend the campaign party of Republican Senator Rafferty, because Senator Rafferty?s daughter, Kathleen attended Pasadena Community College and MI. Sirhan knew her. In other words, it is likely that Mr. Sirhan went to the Ambassador Hotel originally to look for the Ra?erty party, not the Kennedy party, and thus, only incidentally found his way to the Kennedy party. After arriving at the Ambassador Hotel Mr. Sirhan recalled, felt out of place there. It was very hot. I wanted to cool down. I had the idea to get some lemonade. There was a bar there.? Mr. Sirhan?s memory of the bartender suggests a strange feeling of familiarity between them, as if even though Mr. Sirhan didn?t know who the bartender was, he felt as if some previous relationship had been established. Mr. Sirhan additionally recalls that the bartender communicated by non?verbal signals, like making unusual contact and nodding, and through this process of handing Mr. Sirhan alcoholic drinks and non-verbally gesturing to him Mr. Sirhan got very ?tired.? Mr. Sirhan recalled: ?Now I?m going to another don?t the Later I heard that it was the Embassy like a huge looks like a dance recall a lot of getting wasn?t expecting is getting want to get a drink. A make-shift bar see a White looked we just told him What I ?5 like I have a relationship with this drink it while I?m walking tall looks like lemonade want to go back for me everything about the relationship with this guy] He looks like in Abbott and short he wasn?t looking for a wasn?t is like he?s communicating with nod after I paid for it.? ?I?m still looking didn?t make it (the drink) right in front of made it and brought it that I came back again..it was like a routine between I?m more . I?m a regular customer of don?t remember seeing him seemed like he was a never initiated a conversation but after the second time it was like there was a communication between it happened with a [Freely recall anything about this communication] It seemed a return business..when he saw me come back he knew what I is hard to ?gure out if he?s targeting me or I?m targeting don?t remember him saying anything like ?shoot Kennedy? or anything like just very make contact with a knows his I begin to get sat down on one of the remember feeling that I had to go bright under the want to go know the way past the wanted to go back the same way that [See what else you can remember] I?m still sitting on the have to go was my ?nal seen the I couldn?t ?nd Kathleen Rafferty.a 10.4 It is notable that at this point in time Mr. Sirhan can only think about going home. Again, his expressed desire to leave the party and go home does not suggest the motivation of an assassin ready to kill a presidential candidate shortly thereafter. 10.5 Mr. Sirhan recalled leaving the party and returning to his car. At that point he realized that he drank too much to drive. Thus, Mr. Sirhan re?traced his steps to the party to ?nd coffee, so that he could become more alert to drive. He recalled: ?l?rn starting to go get in the car. . .I couldn?t think about driving the was car was the only car the couldn?t make myself drive There is no way I could drive the car. . .I don?t want to chance I wanted to sleep-..l wanted to Then I go back to the hotel and get coffeeback down that seemed don?t remember any easy walk. . .easy walk I was going to get the my was more tired.? 10.6 Mr. Sirhan recalled re?tracing his steps to the same bar. When Mr. Sirhan arrived at the bar he asked the same bartender for coffee. The bartender told him that there was no coffee at the bar. An attractive woman with a polka dot dress was sitting at the bar talking to the bartender. She over-heard Mr. Sirhan asking for coffee and she said that she knew where the coffee was. The woman in the polka dot dress then took Mr. Sirhan by the hand and led him to the ante-room behind the stage where Senator Kennedy was speaking. There they discovered a large silver coffee um and cups. Mr. Sirhan recalled: ?This girl was there. She was looking for coffee, too. Then all of a sudden she says, ?Oh, there?s coffee.? It was on the way zoned in on big We poured the she started to act like a sat on the chair. . .like an egg-hunt we had been searching for the coffee and when we found it she sort of settled of cups and saucers. I poured her a cup. It was self-serve and I remember thinking, ?How do I pay for this?? She had me. I could have had her under different started getting very sexual ideas with the made up my mind I?m going to make it with this girl didn?t lead me was my job to woo 10.7 It is notable that according to Mr. Sirhan?s memory the girl in the polka dot dress leads Mr. Sirhan to find the coffee, not the other way around. While Mr. Sirhan is ?irting with this girl (Mr. Sirhan went to the party to pick up a girl), they are interrupted by an of?cial with a suit and clip board. This of?cial tells them they cannot stay in the anteroom for security reasons, and the of?cial then tells the girl in the. dress to go to the kitchen. Mr. Sirhan recalls: ?All of a sudden theyitell us, we have to move. This guy comes by wearing a darkish hair.. A big, big full like he was in wasn?t wearing any a acknowledges his motions toward the pantry.? The man said, ?You guys can go back in this room.? I followed her. She. was a little like a puppy after her. I wanted to go back to the mariache she went straight to that pantry my 10 being so attracted to her I was just glued to 10.8 One of the unexplained facts about the assassination is how Mr. Sirhan, or any potential assassin, could have known that RFK would come through the kitchen area after his talk, because the of?cial route was changed at the last minute and very few people, including own body guard, knew of the route change. The above mentioned passage suggests that Mr. Sirhan might not have known anything about the route change, or anything about the fact that RFK would pass through the kitchen after his speech. According to what Mr. Sirhan freely recalled, his memory suggests that Mr. Sirhan was lead directly to the kitchen by the girl in the polka dot dress, immediately after I'she had been given this information by an ?of?cial.? According to his memory Mr. Sirhan seems clueless that the girl and this of?cial have led him to the very place that the assassination will occur. Mr. Sirhan clearly says, ?she led the way.? 10.9 When Mr. Sirhan and the girl in the polka dot dress arrive in the kitchen area he recalled that very few people were around. He did recall seeing a security guard sitting in a chair in a doorway further aWay ?om where the girl sat on the stacking table. (This part of the memory is corroborated by the security guard in a statement to the LAPD, who claims he saw Mr. Sirhan in the kitchen). Mr. Sirhan interpreted the quiet and darkness of the kitchen as an occasion to ?irt with the girl. Mr. Sirhan recalled: ?As we were coming in I remember seeing a in was in another saw this of?cer sitting in a talking with with somebody (in the other room?out of sight) that I couldn?t thinking what if I go after this girl and the girl cries out with the cop there? still was ?irting with her. . .the place was we were the only ones in that don?t know where the hell it deep place to get romantic with that she sat up on the table facing with her back to the her thighs and legs are right I am just looking at her trying to take her beauty am trying to ?gure out how to hit on all that I can think sat on the steam table. I was leaning. I was fascinated with her She was sitting. was standing. I was was busty, looked like Natalie Wood. She never said much. It was very erotic. was consumed by her. She was a seductress with an unspoken unavailability.? 10.10 The next part of Mr. Sirhan?s recall is strongly suggestive of an automatic behavioral response to a speci?c post?hypnotic cue, namely when Mr. Sirhan was tapped on the shoulder Mr. Sirhan automatically took his weapon stance and began experiencing a ??ashback? that he was ?ring at Margot at a ?ring range. Mr. Sirhan speci?cally recalled taking his stance, and I speci?cally recalled seeing circular targets in his ?eld of vision. The next thing Mr. Sirhan remembered after that is that he was being choked, partially wake up, and had the thought, am not at a ?ring range I just shot somebody.? This is what Mr. Sirhan recalled: ?l?rn trying to ?gure out how I?m going to have of a sudden she?s looking over my head toward an she taps moor pinches is [Tell me everything you what is going through your mind right after her doing that] It was like a wake contact with my is too abnormal for people to pinch like that for no ll given reason It was like when you?re stuck with a pin or very sharp thought she did it with her a snapped me out of my doldrums. . .yet I?m still points back over my says, ?Look, look, look.? I turn i don?t know what happened after spun me around or turned my body was directing my attention to the There are people coming back through the am still puzzled about what she is directing me didn?t seem relevant to people started streaming kept motioning toward the all of a sudden she gets more She put her arm on my 10.11 When the girl ?rst put her hand on Mr. Sirhan he said, thought it was romantic.? However, he noted that she was not at all looking at him but looking ?way above my head.? Mr. Sirhan continuesto recall: think she had her hand on am not sure if it was her hand or somebody Then I was at the target ?ashback to the shooting ?t know that I had a was this target like a ?ashback to the target I could be fantasizing or dreaming that was at the gun thought that was at the range more than I was actually shooting at any person, let alone Bobby [Recall your state of mind at the time] ?My mental state was like I was drunk and the girl had something to do with loaded and reloaded quite a few times and the target was 100 feet was trying to get dead a lot of think I was at the range in my mind for that ?rst I was like I was at the range [What did the target look like?] ?Circles. It was like I was at the range think I shot one or two shots. . .Then, I snapped out of it and thought, ?I?m not at the range?. . .Then, ?What is going on?? Then they started grabbing thinking, ?the range, the range, the range.? Then everything gets think that?s when Uecker grabbed that ?rst or second was the end it was the wrong place for the gun to be thought it was the they broke my [What happens next?] ?Next thing I remember I was being choked and man-handled. I didn?t know what was going on. I didn?t realize until they got me in a when I saw the female judge I knew that Bobby Kennedy was shot and I was the shooter, but it doesn?t come into my memory.? 10.12 According to Mr. Sirhan?s memory, Mr. Sirhan had no idea that RFK would come through the pantry, although the girl in the polka dress seemed to lead Mr. Sirhan into the pantry, was waiting for RFK come through, and was clearly distracted looking for Kennedy to arrive. Mr. Sirhan described that as hard as he tried to ?irt with the girl, she seemed ?distracted,? in that she kept looking away horn him toward the far doorway. 10.13 Taken at face value Mr. Sirhan?s recall suggests that he was led to the RKF party and eventually to the kitchen by others, and the that his role in the assassination may have been to be the primary distractor. According to his memory, the bartender, the girl in the polka dot dress, and an unknown of?cial all play a central role in leading Mr. Sirhan to the scene of the crime, whereupon the girl taps him on the shouldefand Mr. Sirhan responds upon one with automatic and compulsive behavior-~what Mr. Sirhan eventually described as ?range mode?? wherein Mr. Sirhan takes his ?ring stance and experiences a ??ashback? that he is ?ring at circle target at a 12 ?ring range, in away that has been well practiced. While interviewing Mr. Sirhan I, along with attorney Dusek, directly observed Mr. Sirhan spontaneously switch into ?range mode? on several occasions, where upon Mr. Sirhan automatically took his ?ring stance, and in an uncharacteristic robot?like voice described shooting at vital human organs. Following brief re-enactments of ?range mode? Mr. Sirhan remained completely amnesic for the behavior. Overall, if Mr. Sirhan?s free recall is taken at face value, this very unusual recall does indeed suggest possible hypnotic programming of, and behavioral handling of, Mr. Sirhan to serve as a distractor for an assassination of a presidential candidate. While Mr. Sirhan?s high level of hypnotizability was noted at trial defense expert Dr. Diamond, Diamond made the assumption 10.14 Despite the repeated attempts to have Mr. Sirhan recall the gun, at no point did Mr. Sirhan ever clearly recall how he got a gun. Mr. Sirhan has a strong conviction in the acouracy of his memory about the gun, namely that he left the gun in a box in his car, and that he would never take the gun out in public. Mr. Sirhan is adamant in his belief that he ever brought the gun into the Ambassador Hotel. When asked to explain how he might have gotten a gun, he recalled being bumped up against and pushed around in the crowd on his way back to the bar to get coffee. He speculated (without speci?c recall) that the gun might have been placed in his waist hand without his knowing it. It is also possible that the girl in the polka dot dress handed him the gun, but he does not remember so. 10.15 Mr. Sirhan?s memory report is consistent with an hypnotic programming hypothesis that strongly implies that his behavior on the night of the assassination was involuntary, and was followed by amnesia for the events. Research on using hypnosis to get hypnotizable individuals to commit antisocial acts conducted back in the 1960s demonstrated that a very small group of high hypnotizables could be made to commit antisocial acts if hypnotic suggestions were given to distort the reality in such a way that it didn?t seem to the hypnotized subject that they were committing an antisocial act. At least some aspects of covert mind control research conducted by intelligence agencies concurrent with the RFK assassination was documented in J. Marks The Search for the ?Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mad Control?The Secret History of the behavioral Sciences (1979) published as a reparation agreement by the American Association beCause one of the main ?programmers,? Dr. Ewin Cameron served as President of the American Association while conducting illegal mind control on unsuspecting citizens Without their consent. My colleague, Alan Sche?in, an expert on mind control, secured thousands of pages of government documents from these covert mind control experiments under the Freedom of Information Act. These documents describe, albeit redacted, instances of CIA experimentation with the possible creation of ?unconscious assassins??.?unsuspecting ordinary citizens programmed, without their conscious knowledge and outside their voluntary control, to carry out cue-induced assassinations of of?cials in other 13 personality factors make only a very small portion of individuals vulnerable to such unconscrous assassm training. The documents also demonstrate that a combination of sensory deanalZlOIl, hallucmogenic drugs, and hypnosis were used in training unconscious assassinations 10.16 Mr. Sirhan has a rare combination of personality characteristics that make him highly vulnerable to coercive persuasion and mind control methods. In addition, Mr. Sirhan?s report of suddenly changing his state after being touched by the girl, and then hallucinating that he was at the ?ring range, is; suggestive of the kind of mind control research done during that era, namely training a hypnotizable subject to respond on cue to a post-hypnotic suggestion to hypnotically hallucinate being at the ?ring range. In this case, the evidence suggests that Mr. Sirhan may have been used more asfa distractor than the main assassin. Such a suggestion would insure that: 1. Mr. Sirhan would not think he was committing an antisocial act and 2. Mr. Sirhan would literally give it his best shot. Being choked seems to awaken Mr. Sirhan from his ?ashback that he is at the ?ring range, but does not necessarily awaken him from trance. 10.17 After repeated attempts at free recall of the events on the night of the assassination, I subsequently asked Mr. Sirhan in an open-eye hypnotic trance to freely associate to the drawings on page 550 ofthe-Kaiser published verison of Mr. Sirhan?s spiral notebooks. Mr. Sirhan reported that the drawings looked like targets at a target range. In other words, Mr. Sirhan had drawn ?ring range targets on the same page on his notebook as he wrote the RF assassination entries, as if ?ring at target range targets and ?ring at a human target like RF are somehow intertwined in his mind. 10.18 Mr. Sirhan also clari?ed one passage in his spiral notebook on the relationship between alcohol and love. (See notebook in Kaiser, 1970, 2008, 548 ?Alcohol will love love love love love love.) In this passage Mr. Sirhan has made a connection in his recall between alcohol of night of the assassination and his ?love? for the Polka Dot dress girl. Touching Mr. Sirhan on his shoulder and! or uniting him around suggests an hypnotic cue to enter ?range mode,? to hypnotically hallucinate the ?ring range, and to tire automatically upon one. My review of the eyewitness accounts in the kitchen at the time of the assassination suggests that giving Mr. Sirhan the cue to start shooting may have been to a second shooter and that the sound of the second gun may have also served as an additional cue to Mr. Sirhan to keep ?ring. 10.19 After repeated attempts at free recall and free recall plus the cognitive interview I then hypnotized Mr. Sirhan to see if Mr. Sirhan recalled any additional new material under the condition of hypnosis. Very little new material was reported under hypnosis, with a few exceptions. In other}; words, most of his recall was relatively complete prior to the introduction of hypnosis. four pieces of new memory evidence speci?c to hypnotic free recall: I. Mr. Sirhan added that the man in the at the end of the kitchen doorway might have been a policeman, or ?reman. 2. Sirhan repelled that the girl in the polka dot dress 1.4 disappeared when he took ?range mode.? 3. Mr. Sirhan recalled more about his inner state of mind during ?range mode.? Here is the additional recall: started looking toward that see the girl don?t know what wasn?t there anymore and I was just focusing on thought I was at the tables reminded me of being at the the girl?s at the range, was all just have a memory of this was there (at the range) that very thought I was back at the automatic motion like I was shooting at the feeling the sting of the don?t remember what I I was the to was like a sudden you?re not at the range didn?t see anybody shooting I was man-handled and roughed the hell out of the people showed don?t know Where they came couldn?t 10.20 Fourth, under the condition of hypnotic free recall, but not under waking free recall, Mr. Sirhan unwittingly reported seeing the ?ash of a second gun at the time of the assassination. He recalled: ?Steady in front of ?ashing streaking in ?ont of my bright spots. Then dark, blank.? [Anything else?] I might recall a thunderclap of other bullets. I didn?t thinkl ?red more than 2-3 shots, and I think one hit the side of the wall. I don?t remember human voices screaming or hollering. Everything went blank.? 10.21 In a follow-up interview asked Mr. Sirhan to clarify whether the ?gun ?ash? he reported seeing came from his own gun or ?om somewhere else. He said, ?my gun does not ?ash.? In this passage Mr. Sirhan clearly concedes indirectly that, without knowing it, Mr. Sirhan actually saw the ?ash from another gun at the time of the assassination.? 10.22 After repeated free recall attempts, I asked Mr. Sirhan to summarize his understanding of his memory for the night of the assassination. Mr. Sirhan said: ?Maybe the girl had a kind of signal. I don?t know. When she turned me around the Kennedy group kept coming in and she Was trying to get my attention. When I spun around, that was the last time I saw her. I don?t remember shooting. I don?t remember aiming at Bobby Kennedy. I don?t remember seeing him as a target. was like a continuation of being at the target an indoor target don?t remember any be the clang of be of reminds me of the Could be the pinch from the sharp pain. . . Sharp say I called Bobby Kennedy a son-of?a?bitch. I don?t remember doing that. Maybe somebody called me a s.o.b. because I shot him. I wasn?t aware of a lot of me and pointed to the where I thought I ?red.? 10.23 Since Mr. Sirhan seemed to respond immediately and compulsiver with ?range mode? behavior to the touch one by the girl with the polka dot dress, I subsequently asked Mr. Sirhan, 15 ?Did anybody ever touch you like that before?? Mr. Sirhan replied, don?t remember. It could have been at the range. With her I was more elated.? [Did anyone at any time ever give you such a cue?] It might have happened at the range.? The ?range? does not refer to Fish Canyon (which Sirhan visited the day of the assassination), but to a police and military ?ring range, where Mr. Sirhan recalls he was trained to shoot at human targets. ll. As a result of the extensive interview process and the systematic exploration of Mr. Sirhan?s memory I was able to ascertain the following facts about the events leading up to the assassination and the manner in which Mr. Sirhan was coerced to shoot upon cue: 11.1 Friends and family state that Mr. Sirhan underwent a fundamental personality change after a fall from a horse while racing at the Corona race track in September 25,1966. The personality change is attributed to a head injury. There is no evidence of a head injury. The emergency room hospital record shows he was treated for a super?cial injury and discharged the same day. A subsequent EEG shows no evidence of a brain injury. Testimony by his family and best friend establishes that Mr. Sirhan was actually missing for two weeks. The facts suggest that the horse fall was drug-induced and staged, and that Mr. Sirhan was taken to an unidenti?ed hospital unit for two weeks, and whatever was done to him caused a fundamental change in his personality. 11.2 Mr. Sirhan?s unusual free recall of the events of the night of the assassination raises serious questions about involuntary, automatic response to coercive tactics of others. If Mr. Sirhan had been coercively trained to respond with ?range mode? upon one at the time of the assassination, then there needs to be some explanation as to when and how such coercion might have occurred. I believe he answers lies in the well-known fact that Mr. Sirhan suffered a ?head injury? from a fall from a horse while employed at Corona Race Track. Mr. Sirhan?s family and best friend Terry Welch state unequivocally that Mr. Sirhan underwent a fundamental personality change after the horse accident due to a head injury.These facts suggest a very different picture from the historical record. 11.3 First, there is no evidence to support the head injury/brain damage View. Because of the documentation of two falls from horses at the Corona race track and documentation of a possible head injury, it was important to test Mr. Sirhan for brain injury~related memory de?cits. (There is also evidence of a fall and head injury from childhood). Brain injury can cause hippocampal damage resulting in organic amnesic characterized by anterograde amnesia. As a screening device I gave Mr. Sirhan the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, which detects brain?related short-tenn memory encoding failures. Mr. Sirhan was given 5 trials of 15 words on a list to remember, followed by a single trail of remembering words from a different list, followed by recall of the original list words after a 50?minute delay. His responses across all trials were within the normal range for his age-range. There is absolutely no evidence of an organic amnesic typically associated with brain injury. The medical records also documents normal EEG shortly following the head injury. My testing and also the available historical laboratory objective ?ndings seem to contradict the report of any brain damage following the horse fall. 16 11.4 Second, the fact remains that even in the absence of brain damage, those closest to Mr. Sirhan reported a fundamental personality change in Mr. Sirhan immediately following the first horse fall. According to the historical record, Mr. Sirhan was hired as a stable boy at Corona. On one occasion Mr. Sirhan was allowed to ful?ll his dream, namely to ride as a jockey. On the day he rode, there was allegedly a thick fog bank. Mr. Sirhan allegedly crashed into a guard rail in thick fog, fell, received a head injury, was treated for minor injuries in the emergency room at Corona Community Hospital and released the same day. 12. After three years of testing and intervieng Mr. Sirhan, my conclusions with respect to likely mind control and hypnotic programming of him to unwittingly play a diversionary role in the assassinationof Senator Kennedy, are forti?ed by a wide range of additional factual information, which Mr. Sirhan was ultimately able to provide me about mind control training, and training to shoot at human targets, and also about how Mr. Sirhan produced his spiral notebook writings. 1 have been asked by Counsel, however, for the purpose of this Declaration, and my contribution to the issue of actual innocence, not to burden the Court with this degree of detail. I am advised that this may be more appropriate in another proceeding. l2.1 Mr. Sirhan?s recall, after 40 years, as set out above, is likely to be accurate for the gist of what occurred for a number of reasons: 12.1.1 Mr. Sirhan has demonstrated accuracy, but not complete recall, for other verifiable events from around the same time frame; 12.1.2 Mr. Sirhan shows low memory suggestibility ?om every scientifically recognized test I have given him, relating to that facility; 12.1.3 Systematic non-suggestive interviewing was used based on repeated free recall; 12. 1.4 Mr. Sirhan repeatedly questioned, expressed disbelief in, and sometimes even denied his recollections, even where the content of his recollections might have been exculpatory; 12.1.5 Even Where elements of his recall appear unusual, there is some corroboration for his recall, like the LAPD documentation regarding his presence at a police and military ?ring range; 12.1.6 Mr. Sirhan?s verbal recollection of shooting upon one was also strongly supported by at least three automatic demonstrations of ?range mode? behavior in hypnosis, each of which was followed by complete amnesia for the automatic compulsive behavior; 12.1.7 The validity measures on various tests were all in the normal range, suggesting that atleast with respect to the report of his report is likely accurate and he is not trying to appear in any fabricated manner or way. 13. It is an indisputed fact that Mr. Sirhan ?red a gun in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel on 1 7 the night of. the assassination. The evidence revealed by my extensive interviews substantiates the less re?ned allegation that he engaged in this activity in response to a cue given by another party, and thus compels the conclusion that his action of firing the gun was neither under his voluntary control, nor'done with conscious knowledge, but is' likely a product of automatic hypnotic behavior and coercive control. I am convinced that Mr. Sirhan legitimately recalled a ?ashback to shoot target circles at a ?ring range in response to the post?hypnotic touch cue and did not have the knowledge, or intention, to shoot a human being, let alone Senator Kennedy. Even after 40 years Mr. Sir-han still is confused when told by others that he shot Senator Kennedy. 14. Accordingly, after an extensive attempt to enable Mr. Sirhan to recall the events on the night of the assassination and the events leading up to the assassination, it is my opinion that Mr. Sirhan did not act under his own volition and knowledge or intention at the time of the assassination and is not responsible for actions coerced and/or carried out by others, and further that the system of mind control which was imposed upon him has also made it impossible for him to recall under hypnosis or consciously, many critical details of actions and events leading up to and at the time of the shooting in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel. I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief. '37 . .34 Daniel Brown MA. Associate Clinical Professor of Harvard Medical School at 18