Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Akron, Ohio Beacon Journal staff writer Julie Wallace reports. Excerpt: A Summit County Board of Elections employee quizzed as part of a probe into a candidate’s missing petitions failed two polygraph tests after admitting using drugs and alcohol before the tests, law enforcement officials said. Several sources familiar with the investigation identified the employee — …
Akron, Ohio Beacon Journal staff writer Lisa A. Abraham reports. Excerpt: The chairman of the Summit County Board of Elections wants all board members to take polygraph tests voluntarily to protect the board’s integrity. Russell Pry made the suggestion at a board meeting Tuesday night. The county Democratic Party chairman said he would put a …
Beacon Journal staff writer Craig Webb reports in an article titled, “Falls police dispatcher loses job.” Excerpt: The Cuyahoga Falls police dispatcher whose allegations about her bosses led to a major departmental shake-up is no longer on the job. Mayor Don Robart said Tuesday that Kathleen M. Ball was fired as the result of a …
Beacon Journal staff writer Julie Wallace reports. Excerpt: The investigation into the missing petitions at the Summit County Board of Elections has moved to a new level — lie-detector tests. This week, investigators from the Summit County Sheriff’s Office started picking employees from the roughly 35 full-timers and 21 part-timers and asking them to submit …
Ryan Panitz reports for KTVB News. Excerpt: The Boise Police Union wants the city to re-evaluate the polygraph policy. The union says the police department’s internal rules about taking lie detector tests are not fair if Boise Police Chief Don Pierce does not have to take one. “The police officers are asking that the chief …
Starlyn Klein reports for KCBI-TV in Boise, Idaho. Excerpt: BOISE – Before the Boise police officers voted no-confidence in their chief, Don Pierce refused to take a polygraph test requested by the police union. They wanted to ask him questions about the shake-up at City Hall. Pierce also refused to meet with the entire union …
Penny Brown Roberts reports for the Baton Rouge, Louisiana Advocate in an article titled, ‘Shocking’ discrimination suit kept alive.” Excerpt: A federal judge has refused to dismiss a former detective’s claims that he endured racial harassment and discrimination in the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office for years, and was wrongly fired for assisting a 2001 Louisiana …
The Virginian-Pilot reports that a settlement has been reached in an $18 million Employee Polygraph Protection Act lawsuit. Excerpt: NORFOLK — A lawsuit filed by a former Smithfield Packing Co. saleswoman against the meatpacker has been settled on the eve of trial this week. The terms were not disclosed. The former employee, Julie M. Bannister, …
Mark Dadigan reports for the Vero Beach Press Journal. Excerpt: The pace of your heartbeats quickens, your breaths deepen and beads of sweat slide down your skin. According to some law-enforcement circles, you’ve probably just lied. Since the 1930s, polygraphs, or lie-detector tests, which theoretically link physiological changes to honesty, have been used as investigative …
Jennifer Muir and Emma Perez-Treviño report for the Brownsville, Texas Herald in an article titled, “Sheriff holds off on staff changes.” Excerpt: Administrative debates temporarily staved off Sheriff Conrado Cantu’s plan to restructure a troubled county jail staff Monday, but Cameron County’s top lawman said his department will continue considering options this week as his …