Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Vindy.com of Youngstown reports in “Result of rape case to be decided by polygraph”: Rape charges will be dropped if the defendant passes the test. YOUNGSTOWN — A Boardman man charged with raping a Youngstown boy while he was between the ages of 14 and 16 will let a lie-detector test decide his fate. Under …
Denver Post staff writer Mike Chambers reports in “Shanahan: Kircus Won’t Be Booted”: A conviction for assault would not cause Broncos receiver David Kircus to be released from the team. Coach Mike Shanahan said today that Kircus passed a lie-detector test Friday morning and that as far as the team is concerned, it will outweigh …
Don Bohning reviews John Sullivan’s new book for the Miami Herald: NONFICTION CIA agent tells the truth about the polygraph An insider reveals much about the secretive agency and its controversies. BY DON BOHNING GATEKEEPER: Memoirs of a CIA Polygraph Examiner. John F. Sullivan. Potomac. 288 pages. $27.95. John Sullivan’s job was ferreting out liars. …
A post on the Gone Nuclear blog titled, “I Cannot Tell a Lie” has been devoted to documenting the experiences of those who have been through the Department of Energy’s polygraph screening program.
The Cleveland Law Library Weblog provides further information on Summit County judge Judith Hunter’s 15-page order [link fixed] (252 kb PDF) to allow polygraph evidence over the prosecutor’s objection in the rape trial of Sahil Sharma (State v. Sharma, Case No. 06-09-3248).
James Ewinger reports for the Cleveland Plain Dealer in “Judge OKs Lie Detector Tests in Sex Case”: With a Summit County judge’s decision to admit lie-detector evidence, a New York law student may end up setting legal precedent even before he takes a bar exam. Sahil Sharma, 26, is charged with a single count of …
In “Freed After 22 Years,” Jonathan Casiano and Mark Mueller of the Newark, New Jersey Star-Ledger report on the case of Byron Halsey, from whom it now appears police extracted a false confession to the molestation and brutal murder of two children after he wrongly failed a polygraph examination. DNA evidence exculpates Halsey and has …
WorldNetDaily.com reports in a story titled, “Polygraph for Sandy Berger to be Studied” Excerpt: A spokesman for President Bush says a demand by Republicans for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to follow through on former White House insider Sandy Berger’s promise to take a polygraph test regarding the classified documents he took from the National Archives …
Despite a 2003 finding by the National Academy of Sciences that “[polygraph testing’s] accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies,” an internal memorandum to employees at Los Alamos National Laboratory posted on the blog, LANL: …
Historian Ken Alder discusses the nexus between America’s atomic weapons program and the lie detector in “America’s Two Gadgets: Of Bombs and Polygraphs,” Isis, 2007, 98:124-137.