Florida Polygraph Association past president George Slattery claims that polygraph "testing" has been proven to be nearly 100% reliable in a 23 October 2002 South Florida Sun Herald article by Diana Marrero titled "Figure in Rilya case takes plea deal." The article is about the case of Leo Epson, the son of one of missing 6-year-old Rilya Wilson's caretakers, "who accepted a plea deal in his fraud case Tuesday in exchange for his word that he will tell investigators what he knows" about the missing girl. The article states in relevant part:


Quote:

Epson, 39, originally faced up to six years in prison, but prosecutors wanted him to plead guilty and serve 364 days in jail, followed by five years of probation, in exchange for a statement verified by a lie detector test. Over prosecution objections, Circuit Judge Daryl Trawick discarded the jail time, cut probation to two years, and gave Epson this choice: Take a lie detector test or perform 200 hours of community service. Epson chose the community service. Prosecutors say that without the lie detector test, they won't be able to verify his statements. "We thought it was important that a lie detector test be used," Griffith said. Though polygraphs are not admissible in court, they are commonly used as a tool to ensure the person agreeing to provide information for a plea deal is telling the truth. A lie often means the deal is off. "For him [Epson] to say, `I'll talk but I won't verify it' makes no sense to me," said George Slattery, a Miami polygraph examiner who routinely conducts tests for law enforcement agencies and says polygraphs are proved to be nearly 100 percent reliable.

Challenge to George Slattery: support your claim that polygraphs are nearly 100 percent reliable. The National Academy of Sciences has recently concluded (at p. 168 of its report, The Polygraph and Lie Detection) that "[t]here is essentially no evidence on the incremental validity of polygraph testing, that is, its ability to add predictive value to that which can be achieved by other methods."

Diana Marrero can be reached at dmarrero@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5005, should anyone wish to contact her and alert her that she has been spoonfed erroneous information by Mr. Slattery for the purposes of bolstering-- at the expense of accurate reporting-- the false belief that polygraphy is anything but a pseudo-scientific fraud.


wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2002 at 12:08pm:

Florida Polygraph Association past president George Slattery claims that polygraph "testing" has been proven to be nearly 100% reliable in a 23 October 2002 South Florida Sun Herald article by Diana Marrero titled "Figure in Rilya case takes plea deal." The article is about the case of Leo Epson, the son of one of missing 6-year-old Rilya Wilson's caretakers, "who accepted a plea deal in his fraud case Tuesday in exchange for his word that he will tell investigators what he knows" about the missing girl. The article states in relevant part: Challenge to George Slattery: support your claim that polygraphs are nearly 100 percent reliable. The National Academy of Sciences has recently concluded (at p. 168 of its report, The Polygraph and Lie Detection) that "[t]here is essentially no evidence on the incremental validity of polygraph testing, that is, its ability to add predictive value to that which can be achieved by other methods."

beech trees,

I've e-mailed a letter to the editor of the South Florida Sun Herald letters@sun-sentinel.com, calling Mr. Slattery's claim into question and mentioning this public challenge. I copied the e-mail to Ms. Marrero dmarrero@sun-sentinel.com and to Mr. Slattery polygraph@georgeslattery.com.

I encourage others to contact the Sun Herald on this matter, too.

The Rilya Wilson is a heart felt tragedy for all Floridians. A tragedy that has resulted from the gross incompetence and negligence of the Florida Dept. Of Children and Family Services. For me, the buck stops at the Govenors Office and is why Jeb Bush will be rejected by Floridians.

Now, I no fan of Geralyn Graham. Her claim is someone from DCF came to pick up the child for a medical examination. On the steps of the Miami Dade County Police Dept. Govenor Bush rejected her claims as lies and stated she showed deception on her polygraph.

Now here is the scary part. After her statement that someone from DCF or posing as an agent of DCF came to pick up the child three other foster care parents reported similar incidents.

These reports have been down played by the media and the police. However, a new policy now requires the presents of a Police officer before DCF is allowed to remove or take custody of a child.

Ms, Grahams character brings forth many questions, like why the State of Florida would place a child in her household. But just maybe she is telling the truth and just maybe law enforcements investigation is being misdirected by the results of her polygraph.

Follow this story. I would not be surprized if in the end it turns out this child was abducted by some sick f*** posing as an agent of DCF.

>:(

Oh, by the way Mr Slattery will not as much as respond to your e-mail. :-X

sie,

To date, I have not received any response from Mr. Slattery or the South Florida Sun Herald.

Mr. Slattery, if you're out there, ponder this:

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.-- Saul Bellow

A week has passed without a word from Mr. Slattery regarding his claim that polygraphs are nearly 100 percent reliable. It seems he's prepared to take a place in the Polygraph Hall of Shame, where he'll be joining other polygraphers who have misled the media:

Milton O. "Skip" Webb, Jr. (President, American Polygraph Association)

Frank Horvath (Past President, American Polygraph Association)

Harry Reed (President, Illinois Polygraph Society)

The people that say a polygraph is not reliable are the ones that have been hooked up and had their lie revealed* Here is an idea, Lets hook up this dork from this site in front of his loved ones, friends, past and present bosses and co-workers and ask him his deepest truths and deceptions and then debate this*
:P

wrote on Jun 23^rd, 2008 at 12:07am:

The people that say a polygraph is not reliable are the ones that have been hooked up and had their lie revealed* Here is an idea, Lets hook up this dork from this site in front of his loved ones, friends, past and present bosses and co-workers and ask him his deepest truths and deceptions and then debate this* :P

I say the polygraph is not reliable and I never had my lies revealed for the simple reason that I didn't tell any lies.  Despite that, I failed three out of four polygraphs.

If the polygraph was reliable I would have passed all four tests because I was telling the truth on all of them and my answers didn't change on any of them.

Quote:

The people that say a polygraph is not reliable are the ones that have been hooked up and had their lie revealed*

To my knowledge, the folks from the National Academy of Sciences who reported the polygraph to be NOT reliable, have NEVER been hooked up to a polygraph.

exactly~

wrote on Jun 24^th, 2008 at 1:43am:

exactly~

Nice non-sequitur response.

My 'non-response ' isn't obvious?
Both responses to my comment seem to support my thoughts.
How many scientists have made claims to something they never experienced and later their 'theory' was 'proven' incorrect?
I think one fact about the polygraph test is that it is a machine,
the machine is not doing the thinking, it is mearly reporting on what it is being fed. The element that makes the test accurate is the person creating the testing questions and how skillfully they ask the same questions in different contexts. Doing this with intelligence and skill is how George Slattery's important work he did came to be amicable as evidence in a court of law on so many national cases*
GBS has been quoted many times in his life, unless you had a face to face conversation with GBS it makes you a bit small to judge him*
You are supported by others that have limited knowledge of the wide range of actual facts on this matter and I dont expect to suddenly enlighten any of you* My best to all of you*  ;D

wrote on Jun 26^th, 2008 at 12:01am:

My 'non-response ' isn't obvious? Both responses to my comment seem to support my thoughts. How many scientists have made claims to something they never experienced and later their 'theory' was 'proven' incorrect? I think one fact about the polygraph test is that it is a machine, the machine is not doing the thinking, it is mearly reporting on what it is being fed. The element that makes the test accurate is the person creating the testing questions and how skillfully they ask the same questions in different contexts. Doing this with intelligence and skill is how George Slattery's important work he did came to be amicable as evidence in a court of law on so many national cases* GBS has been quoted many times in his life, unless you had a face to face conversation with GBS it makes you a bit small to judge him* You are supported by others that have limited knowledge of the wide range of actual facts on this matter and I dont expect to suddenly enlighten any of you* My best to all of you*  ;D

You wrote that the people who say the polygraph is not reliable are the ones who have been hooked up to it and had their lies revealed.  Cullen and I offered examples of people who say the polygraph is not reliable and who have not been "hooked up" and have not "had their lies revealed".  These examples refuted your statement, yet your follow up post indicated we had proved your point for you.  

Your response did not make sense.

MSlatt's response was accurate.
The polygraph machine is to the polygrapher as an Xray machine is to the radiologist.  
It is the skilled human who knows how to get the best out of the machine, who accurately targets the problem, takes the best possible 'picture', has the talent to correctly interpret the results produced, then finally intelligently confirms the diagnosis.  
George Slattery was a highly skilled and very professional polygrapher.

Boy oh Boy, like I said,,,,
I ran across the challenge to GBS and I am now bored with this uninteresting nonsense~  
If You get bored you can go back and reread the comments and then see if your last statement was substancial* Good luck to you~
With respect*Im outta here~ 8-)

Well said MSlatt and SJH!  You are wasting your time on these knuckleheads though.  The people on this site are there because they have an axe to grind.  Either they were exposed as deceptive and are ranting and raging in frustration or they are victims of an inept examiner.  Either way it is probably a waste of time and energy to try and convince them of the level of expertise and professionalism that George Slattery brought to his profession. It is true that polygraphy is more of an art than a science and he was one of the best. While he was able to persuade hundreds of deceptive people/criminals to confess to their crimes and transgressions (from theft and forgery to murder and rape) I know that he was far more proud of the many innocents that he helped to exonerate.  

He will be missed and the world is a better place because of the work he did while he was with us.

Semper Fi and good bye George Slattery.

Quote:

I think one fact about the polygraph test is that it is a machine, the machine is not doing the thinking, it is mearly reporting on what it is being fed. The element that makes the test accurate is the person creating the testing questions and how skillfully they ask the same questions in different contexts.

Just reporting on what it is being fed?  

The machine simply measures F3 reactions to questions, which the examiner then falsely claim to be an indication of "deception".  It's like saying a high temperature and cough automatically equate to the flu.


Quote:

The polygraph machine is to the polygrapher as an Xray machine is to the radiologist.

That's a false comparison.

If an Xray film show that there is a broken collar bone, for instance, then it's a broken collar bone, not a broken ankle bone or heart murmur.  The result is unequivocal.  And the result will be followed up with an appropriate treatment based on the Xray.

If a polygraph machine shows consistent autonomic nervous system "reaction" to a question, it could be due to deception, anger, a repressed memory...etc.  The result is NOT unequivocal, but speculative and subjective.  And in the case of preemployment polygraphs, isn't even follow-up for accuracy.

Others have tried to compare the polygraph test with the medical or scientific fields.  But it is all based on the following FALSE SYLLOGISM:

In the field of science, devices are used to measure scientific data.
Polygraphers use a device which measures scientific (physiological) data.
Polygraphers are therefore scientists.

Which is like saying:

Mobsters use fire arms to kill people.
Soldiers use fire arms to kill people.
Soldiers are therefore mobsters.

TC