TwoBlock,

You sound like you would make a mighty fine lawyer. 
The toughest courses in Law School are Civil Procedure, Torts, and Contract Law. those are in your first year courses. After them the rest is challenging but not hard. You should consider it. By your speaking and logic, you could be formidable.   Again thanks for the time.

Regards

Well a whole lot of hubbub and verbage over nothing, I guess, no loss, just one executed murderer.   

Regards

nolehce wrote on Jan 13^th, 2006 at 10:13pm:


Alleged liar,

I gave this particular string alot of thought before I responded to all of you.  No, I not feeling "emboldened" by the fact that Virginia (my home state) correctly executed a murderer.  Nor am I dancing in glee that the state made that decision in part by correctly considering the results of a polygraph examination that proved to be "dead on" accurate in this case (no pun intended).

I am posting now simply to remind each of you who waited with such joyous anticipation to hang a wrongful death charge on a Virginia police examiner, that not a single one of you who posted to this string, have come back to this board and admitted you may have been a little to quick to execute the polygraph examiner instead of the actual murderer.

You all had so much to say.  You all spoke with such authority...   

Alledgedliar:
"Faced with impending execution, and with my life depending on someone else's interpretation of some squiggly lines, I'd probably "fail" a "lie detector test" as well. 

Then state that Coleman "failed," the "test" as if that somehow conclusively proves his guilt."

Well, Allegedliar, I guess in this case, it looks like polygraph did just that. 

George Maschke
"...it is hardly surprising that anyone whose life or imminent death hinged upon his being believed or disbelieved when answering relevant questions about a crime for which he has been convicted might react more strongly to them than to such commonly used probable-lie "control" questions as, "Before (date of crime), did you ever intentionally hurt someone?"

George, once again this case proves you do not understand polygraph concepts and application as well as you claim.  To bad for the folks downloading your materials.   

Polyfool, 
"...It's no wonder Coleman failed his polygraph on the morning of his execution as he had a lot riding on its outcome--his life literally depended on it." 

No, Polyfool.  He failed because he raped and murdered a 19 year old girl…Next question? 

EosJupiter
"What is also interesting to note, is that if he was executed wrongly by the state of Virginia, then the polygraph examiner is also guilty of duplicity & contributing to the death of an innocent person, because he falsely read the charts that lead to his death. At a minimum under the law he is an accessory to the wrongful death. And guess what that’s a felony. Oh this is going to be so much fun watching this work its way out. So to the polygraphers that read this: If he is found innocent then , besides just destroying peoples reputation, you now help people get killed." 

EosJupiter, the obvious joy you took in writing the above posting was one of the main reasons I write you now.  Since the examiner clearly had “duplicity & contributing to the death” of an GUILTY person, will you now stipulate that the polygraph examiner in this case “correctly” read the charts?  You also said "Oh this is going to be so much fun," in reference to how the polygraph community would respond if this murderer were indeed found innocent.  I suspect this situation has turned out to be somewhat less "fun" than you had inticipated.   

Eos Jupiter
"...what I am saying is that the way the law works, and it apples to doctors with malpractice too, is that if the process or procedure contributes to the death of a person, there are both civil and criminal rules involved, and remedies to address those issues. And just by the nature of that type of polygraph interrogation, (and I can't ever be sure), the polygrapher could not have been unbiased as they claim they are. But again we weren't there, but my gut instinct tells me that it wasn't even close to being impartial. That guy was going to fry no matter the outcome. The poly was just an insurance policy for the State of Virginia to say, see he failed ... now lets kill him."

EosJupiter, I'm afraid that once again it seems all your assumptions were wrong.  I believe the examiner conducted a fair and impartial polygraph exmaination here.  As any professional examiner would have.  And don’t forget, his results were accurate and correct. 

Polyfool

"We'll see how the Coleman case plays out. I lot of eyes will be watching this case closely--you can bet on it. If in fact, he is cleared, it seems like it would be a good time to talk about the invalidity and unreliability of the polygraph since his life literally depended on it." 

Hey Polyfool, now that the results of this examination were clearly accurate, lets all talk about the validity and accuracy of polygraph in this case. 

Eos Jupiter
"In civil proceedings, if he is exonerated, that family has a substancial payday coming. And that familys case will start with the State of Virginia, and follow the people trail, of which that polygrapher better have good insurance."

And if by any chance you knew who the examiner was in this case, and posted his name to this board (which you all like to do), trashing his good name in the process, then how much insurance would you have to have now?  Could you afford it?

EosJupiter 
"...because a polygraph was used to help put (if he is exonerated), an innocent man into the electric chair. It even adds more fuel to the antipolygraph momement....this could be a real windfall for the antipolygraph cause.

And instead it has reinforced the importance of polygraph testing in criminal investigations.  In the end I view the results of the polygraph examination in this case as a "real windfall" in the use of a forensic technique that has proved its utility over and over.

My word.

Nonombre
 

Sergeant1107 wrote on Jan 15^th, 2006 at 8:48pm:


Sergeant,

Nice to hear from you again (I mean that, no sarcasm intended).  To answer your question, I did not purposely wait for the DNA results to be posted before responding.  In fact, if you look at the date I did respond, it was several days after the DNA results were made available.  I was going to not respond at all, but I felt I had to in this case.

To answer another question:   Yes, of course there was a chance the polygraph results would be wrong.  Just like there is always a chance that tool mark evidence, ballistics, and hand writing analysis could be wrong.  That is why we consider the totality of any case before any of us should make decisions of guilt or innocence.

My only point is that the posters to this string were virtually jumping out of their skins in gleeful anticipation that the DNA results would counter the polygraph, and when the opposite turned out to be the case, vitually each one was suddenly and strangely silent.

Regards,

Nonombre

EosJupiter wrote on Jan 15^th, 2006 at 9:26pm:


EosJupiter,

I will certainly stipulate that you very much "staked your claim" at the onset of this debate.  Now it is time for you to admit (no matter where I personally came into the picture) that you and your anti-poly buds were busily and joyfully planning the lynching of polygraph over this case before the sad day arrived that proved that polygraph was actually quite right all along.  You must have really hated when that happened...

Now in your defense, I very much respect your position that a cold blooded murderer came to his much earned end.  At least you are not a bleeding heart liberal.

I really dislike those guys.

Nonombre

EosJupiter wrote on Jan 15^th, 2006 at 11:25pm:


EosJupiter,

Your post brings up an interesting point.  My federal polygraph examiner friends tell me that a number of years ago, there was a federal study conducted that compared the results of Army crime lab analysis with Army CID polygraph results.  The end result (as I am told) was there was not a single case where the polygraph results disagreed with the crime lab results (fingerprints, ballistics, etc).  These polygraph exams were conducted in virtually every case prior to the crime lab results being reported.  Therefore there was no way the polygraph examiners could have know then laboratory outcomes.  If true, this 100% correlation would seem to be a testament to polygraph accuracy.

Unfortunately, I do not have a copy of the study, but I have been told the study was conducted in the 1980s by two guys named Light and Schwartz.

Regards,

Nonombre

polyfool wrote on Jan 16^th, 2006 at 4:00am:


Polyfool,

Please provide me a detailed list of murder convicts, cleared by DNA, that had failed prior police administered polygraph examinations.  Once I have a verifyable list, I might give your ASSertion credence that DNA has proven ANY properly administered, quality controlled, polygraph, wrong.  Until then, have a good day.

Nonombre