Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
On Thursday, 20 October 2022, AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke spoke with David C. Graham, the 2022 Libertarian Party candidate for the United States Senate from the state of Kansas. Topics addressed include the 2015 trial of the late Douglas Gene Williams, who was sentenced to 2 years in prison for teaching undercover federal agents how …
On 19 January 2018, in a case that garnered international attention, Benjamin Lawrence Petty of Spencer, Oklahoma pleaded guilty to raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl at the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center, a church-run summer camp, and in accordance with a negotiated plea agreement was sentenced to 15 years on probation. Petty is legally …
On 14 June 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice in a press release announced that Luke Michael Churchill of Wilmington, North Carolina, had been sentenced to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to a single count of production of child pornography. The press release notes that Churchill “photographed his sexual abuse of a four-year …
In episode 102 of the legal podcast Excited Utterance, Vanderbilt University law professor Edward K. Cheng (@edwardkcheng) interviews Northumbria University senior lecturer in law Kyriakos N. Kotsoglou (@Kyri_Kotsoglou) about the use of polygraphs in the United Kingdom, with an emphasis on Kotsoglou’s new article, “Zombie Forensics: the use of the polygraph and the integrity of …
The Guardian’s science editor, Ian Sample, sits for a polygraph “test” and reports on the British Ministry of Justice’s growing reliance on the pseudoscience of polygraphy. Excerpt: The Ministry of Justice introduced compulsory lie detector tests for sex offenders in 2014. But now the controversial technique is poised to become more widespread in the British …
On Friday, 23 October 2020, Oklahoma district judge Dennis Morris revoked Benjamin Lawrence Petty’s probation and sentenced him to 15 years in prison because he allegedly failed two polygraph “tests” and denied having committed the crime for which he was on probation. In 2016, Petty pleaded guilty to raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl at …
On 21 February 2013, federal agents raided former police polygraphist Doug Williams‘ home and office, seizing his customer records as part of an investigation targeting polygraph countermeasure instructors. The U.S. government used these records to create a interagency watch list of individuals who had purchased Williams’ manual, How to Sting the Polygraph, an accompanying DVD, …
In a 10-page published decision (PDF) filed on 23 May 2016, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that “[b]ecause polygraph testing has not been proven reliable, polygraph test results are not admissible as substantive evidence of a probation violation in probation-revocation proceedings.” The case is State of Minnesota, Respondent, vs. Chad Michael Nowacki, Appellant.
The United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit has ruled in a 25-page opinion (PDF) that a convicted sex offender in a post-conviction polygraph program cannot be compelled to answer questions about his sexual history that could tend to incriminate him. So-called “sexual history polygraphs” are commonly administered early in such programs, and …
Georgia polygraph operator Ken Blackstone has pleaded guilty to a single count of perjury, a felony punishable by one to ten years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $1,000 under Georgia state law. Blackstone committed perjury by falsely claiming during a court hearing that another polygraph examiner, Charles Slupski, had reviewed the charts of …