In an article titled “Some lawyers turning away clients who fail polygraphs,” Dean Narciso reports for the Columbus Dispatch that “[a]ttorney Bradley Koffel uses polygraph tests to screen out potential nightmare clients, especially those charged with sex crimes.”
Any competent lawyer should know that polygraph testing has no scientific basis. Moreover, polygraphy is inherently biased against the truthful and yet easily defeated using simple countermeasures that polygraph operators cannot detect. Koffel’s reliance on pseudoscientific polygraph “tests” to accept or reject clients reflects very poor judgment indeed. Those in the Columbus area in need of competent legal counsel should look elsewhere.
I don’t really care whether Koffel turns away clients based on a polygraph OR a DNA test. Pre-judging the guilt of a client is deplorable on any basis, given what his purported role is in our system. Koffel seems to have forgotten the burden of proof and the presumption of innocence part of his job.