Tennesean staff writer Laura Frank reports. Excerpt:
Last month, John Kline sat down in a chair at the Marriott Residence Inn in Brentwood with tubes and wires attaching his body to a polygraph machine.
Consultant Kendall W. Shull, whose previous job was overseeing the Federal Bureau of Investigation polygraph unit at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., began asking questions as a computer screen charted Kline’s blood volume, breath rate, heartbeat and perspiration.
Kline had alleged that a former priest and principal molested him when Kline was a 16-year-old junior at Father Ryan High School. That man, Ron Dickman, said through an attorney that Kline’s allegations are false. The Tennessean commissioned the polygraph for Kline.
Among the many questions Shull asked Kline, one was most pertinent: ”Did Ron Dickman perform oral sex on you during the year 1981?”
Yes, Kline answered.
Shull asked it another way: ”When you say Ron Dickman performed oral sex on you in 1981, is that a lie?”
No, Kline said.
At the end of the two-hour process, Shull, who has an advanced polygraph studies degree from the University of Virginia and has done polygraph research for the Department of Defense, read the results.
”There is no question in my mind John is telling the truth,” Shull said later. ”The charts are real clear. Some charts aren’t. These are. There’s no question he passed the test.”
Shull sent a copy of Kline’s polygraph results to his partners at National Polygraph Consultants without revealing his analysis of the charts.
Analysts there reached the same conclusion, said Shull, who has conducted more than 380 polygraphs in cases of violent crime, espionage and more for the FBI.
The Tennessean relayed the results of the test to Dickman’s attorney, George Barrett, who discounted the validity of polygraphs.
”I don’t have any confidence in those,” Barrett said. ”They’re not really science. … They’re not admissible in court.” Barrett also declined The Tennessean’s request to have Shull administer a polygraph to Dickman.
Two weeks later, Dickman’s attorneys commissioned their own polygraph for Dickman. Attorney Edmund L. ”Ted” Carey Jr. said Dickman passed his polygraph, too.
”In Mr. Dickman’s pretest interview with the polygrapher, he denied any sexual involvement with Mr. Kline,” Carey wrote in a letter to The Tennessean.
When Dickman was hooked up to the polygraph machine, Carey said, the examiner asked questions that referred to the earlier conversation with Dickman:
· ”Did you lie about sexual abuse of John Kline?”
· ”Did you lie about having any sexual act with John Kline?”
· ”Were you physically present when John Kline was sexually abused?”
To each question, Dickman answered ”no.”
The polygraph examiner, Richard E. Poe of Largo, Fla., found the responses to be truthful, Carey said.