Polygraph

Controversial Justice Department Lawyer Pooh-Poohs Presidential Polygraph Prohibition

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With less than a week remaining before President George W. Bush leaves office, controversial Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven G. Bradbury on Wednesday, 14 January 2009 issued a legal opinion finding that a memorandum from President Lyndon B. Johnson to the heads of departments and agencies prohibiting use of the polygraph in the Executive … Read more

El Paso Police Chief Calls Polygraph a “Piece of Junk”

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El Paso Chief of Police Greg Allen
El Paso P.D. Chief Greg Allen

Speaking in unusually blunt terms for a senior law enforcement official, El Paso, Texas chief of police Greg Allen has decried the polygraph as a “piece of junk,” while El Paso Municipal Police Officers Association president Bobby Holguin has pronounced it “garbage.” Adriana M. Chávez reports for the El Paso Times:

EL PASO — The El Paso Police Department has dropped the use of polygraph exams — commonly known as lie detector tests — on police officers during internal investigations because the results were considered useless.

Until several months ago, the exams were used when complaints were filed against officers.

Police Chief Greg Allen, who was appointed police chief in late March, called the exams a “piece of junk” and the president of the police union said they are “garbage.”

In August, the El Paso City Council approved a new contract with the El Paso Municipal Officers Association that made it possible for an officer to request an independent polygraph examiner to administer the test, instead of one employed by the department, if the chief requests a polygraph test.

But the new administration of Chief Allen simply decided to not use them even though they are still an option.

Criminal suspects also have the option of taking a polygraph test, said police spokesman Officer Chris Mears.

The Police Department has three police officers who are certified to administer polygraph tests.

Both Allen and El Paso Municipal Police Officers Association President Robert “Bobby” Holguin said they have issues with the accuracy of polygraph tests.

Allen and Holguin are in good company. The consensus view among scientists is that polygraphy has no scientific basis.

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An FBI Veteran Comments on the Pentagon’s Polygraph Push

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In “Paranoia in the Pentagon,” security consultant and 25-year FBI veteran Jim Dooley lampoons the Defense Intelligence Agency’s decision to greatly expand its polygraph screening program:

The Pentagon, speaking as a single scary voice, says that it needs more polygraph studios. They need them to catch the spies. What spies? The spies it just knows are everywhere, in the Army, in the Navy, in the CIA, and even in the ranks of the presumptive spy catchers, the FBI. Colonel Clousseau suspects no one, but he is no fool; everyone is a suspect.

I would say that The Pentagon is likely to get everything it wants, being the Pentagon, studios, machines, operators, especially operators, with all but the dentist’s chair contracted out. Too bad. In the gigantic incomprehensible incoherent mess of stuff the Pentagon gets, this idea falls flat in the zone of pernicious blunder.

It would be bad enough if it were just another example of security theater, similar to TSA airport screening. ‘That vial of suntan lotion, not that one miss, the one that says SPF 45, it’s too big.’ ‘No it’s not, it says 3 ounces right on it.’ ‘Are you telling me?’ ‘No, I guess I have a flight to catch, where can I throw it away.’

As it is, I don’t imagine that the Pentagon, which after is all there to conduct wars, is the most fun place to work. You never really know, though. I have a friend Lee who told me that the most fun he ever had was the year he spent flying Helicopters in Viet Nam. He showed me pictures of the bullet holes in the canopy of his Cobra to prove it. Whatever, however the work-a-day world once was in the Pentagon, the polygraph is about to make it a lot worse.

My own experience in the FBI with the polygraph was uniformly bad. One of the first substantial cases on which I worked was a kidnapping case. The kidnappers left some confusion as to where they wanted the ransom package dropped and we got it wrong. We dropped the package of money on top of some railroad workers who thought that it was their lucky night. Realizing our mistake we interviewed the workers who denied knowing anything about the money. The polygraph cleared them. Several weeks later, one of them confessed, implicating the other. Each one said that from the start the other one threatened to kill him if he said anything. I still don’t know which one I really believe.

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Iowa Polygraph Association Lawsuit Withdrawn

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In February 2007, AntiPolygraph.org News cited a Des Moines Register article about a defamation lawsuit filed by former Iowa Polygraph Association (IPA) president James E. Reistroffer against three members of the Association’s ethics committee: Mike McDermott, Dennis Wilbur, and Jan Caylor Martins. The matter is now settled, with Reistroffer having withdrawn his lawsuit, and each … Read more

WhiteHouse.com’s Polygraph Examination of Larry Sinclair

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On Wednesday, 18 June 2008, both Larry Sinclair, the Minnesota man who claims that in 1999 he performed oral sex on, and used cocaine with, then Illinois legislator Barack Obama and Dan Parisi’s WhiteHouse.com, which arranged for a polygraph examination of Mr. Sinclair, will be holding press conferences at the National Press Club in Washington, … Read more

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff Derides Polygraphy as “Junk Science”

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Kat Richardson reports for The Dartmouth on Judge Jed S. Rakoff’s remarks at his recent William H. Timber ‘37 Lecture, which was co-sponsored by the Dartmouth Legal Studies faculty and the Dartmouth Lawyers Association. Excerpt: Science and the law are “uncomfortable” but inevitable “bedfellows,” Jed Rakoff, a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of … Read more

Ohio Defendant Acquitted Based Partly on Polygraph Evidence

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Basing her decision in part on polygraph evidence admitted at trial against the prosecutor’s objection, Summit County Common Pleas Judge Judy Hunter on Monday, 20 August 2007 found Sahil Sharma of New York City innocent of felony sexual battery and two misdemeanor charges. While the text of Judge Hunter’s decision is not yet available, AntiPolygraph.org has obtained pre-trial polygraph testimony as well as video of a polygraph examination that was played in open court. For commentary, see Critique of Louis I. Rovner’s Polygraph Examination and Testimony in Ohio v. Sharma on the AntiPolygraph.org message board.

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