“Lawyers Battle Over Polygraph: State Wants to Tell Jurors Chmura Refused to Take a Lie-Detector Test”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel staff writer Lisa Sink writes:

[Mark] Chmura, 31, a former Green Bay Packers tight end, has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of third-degree sexual assault and child enticement. Authorities have accused him of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl in a bathroom in the home of Chmura’s neighbor Robert Gessert.

The prosecutors’ motion contends they should be allowed “to admit evidence concerning the defendant’s refusal to submit to a polygraph examination as evidence relevant to the defendant’s consciousness of guilt.”

If you are suspected of a crime, whether you are innocent or guilty, you should never agree to submit to a polygraph interrogation. Polygraphy is an unreliable procedure that fundamentally depends on trickery, and a defendant’s refusal to submit should never be allowed in court as evidence of guilt.

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