Mary Flood reports for the Houston Chronicle, providing details of indicted ex-Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling’s polygraph “test”:
Jeff Skilling’s lawyers proudly told a mass of media Thursday morning that the ex-CEO had passed a lie detector test but prosecutors indicted him anyway.
Lawyers Bruce Hiler and Daniel Petrocelli later said they even told prosecutors the Enron Task Force could hook Skilling up to a government polygraph and ask him anything they want. But prosecutors declined.
“This shows the Enron Task Force is just out to get Jeff Skilling,” said attorney Bruce Hiler. “It’s clear there is nothing he could have done to prove his innocence.”
What gives? Well, prosecutors generally don’t find polygraphs very useful.
“We just don’t do that. It’s too unreliable,” said a seasoned local prosecutor. One prosecutor said they had seen a defendant pass a polygraph but then plead guilty anyway.
Enron task force prosecutors would not comment. But other longtime prosecutors and defense attorneys said polygraph tests like these are usually used or proposed for two reasons — because a defendant is wildly innocent or seriously in need of a public relations boost.
Several attorneys who practice a lot of criminal law said that lie detector tests generally can’t be used as evidence, are not infallible, and people can be naturally good at beating them or taught to do so. But they can be touted to the media.
So they are a dubious tool — but a tool nonetheless. Hiler and Petrocelli protest that the federal government itself uses lie detector tests to check out agents before hiring them. And that is true, too.
But everybody agrees there are several keys to these lie detector tests. One is the polygraph examiner. Skilling’s lawyers employed former FBI polygraph program director and U.S. Army tester Paul K. Minor to try to avoid questions about the examiner’s qualification.
Another key is the questions asked. “Lawyers sometimes use this tactic to try to get a dismissal. It doesn’t always work. The questions have to be very, very specific with dates and actions to be valid,” said Stanley Schneider, a Houston defense lawyer.
Skilling answered four questions back on December 4, 2001, right about the time his former employer filed bankruptcy. The “final call” from the examiner was “no deception indicated.”
Here they are:
Q: While president of Enron, were you aware of any improper financial arrangement that was concealed from the Board of Directors?
A: No.
Q: Have all payments made to you by Enron, its affiliates and SPEs, been approved by Enron?
A: Yes.
Q: While president of Enron, did you believe that ChewCo, Jedi and LJM were properly accounted for on Enron’s financial statements?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you sell your Enron stock on Sept. 17 because you had inside information that Enron has inaccurately portrayed its financial condition?
A: No.