Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Dennis Engbarth reports for Inter Press Service on the case of Chiang Kuo-ching, a Taiwanese airman who was executed in 1997 for the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl. Military investigators tortured a confession out of Chiang after he failed to pass a lie detector “test.” Since then, DNA evidence and a palm-print have incriminated a …
Lawyers for Troy Davis, who faces execution by lethal injection at 19:00 hours Eastern time today for the 1991 slaying of an off-duty Savannah police officer, are seeking a polygraph test in a bid to persuade the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to stay the execution. The Davis case has been the subject of much …
In his latest article, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Daniel Rubin documents the plight of Greg Thomas, an investigator for the city court system who recently failed a Philadelphia Police Department pre-employment polygraph despite, he insists, having told the truth. Rubin notes that since reinstating polygraph screening this year (it had been discontinued in 2002), the Philadelphia …
Skeptic Kyle Hill, a graduate student at Marquette University who maintains the blog Science-Based Life, takes a look at the evidence for polygraphy in “The Polygraph Test: Can Science Tell if You Are Lying?” He compares the claims made by polygraph advocates such as the American Polygraph Association with the findings of the Congressional Office of …
As the American Polygraph Association holds its annual seminar in Austin, Texas this week, one of the topics on the agenda is a program run by a consortium of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies called “Polygraph Law Enforcement Accreditation” (PLEA). Participating agencies include the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), the Defense Criminal Investigative …