Actually, "did you ever fail a subject after he or she produced NDI results" would probably be a control question, not a relevant question. And not just because it starts "did you ever..." (questions that are unlimited in time are usually, but not always, CQs)
Fake Dr. James Allan Matte in
Forensic Psychophysiology Using the Polygraph lists a large number of possible control questions grouped by the type of case they could be applied to (narcotics, homicide, paternity, sexual assault, robbery, etc). For polygraphs concerning internal police matters he lists the following control questions:
- Do you remember ever making any king of false report about any incident?
- Do you remember ever abusing your authority as a police officer?
- Do you remember ever violating a suspect's rights in effecting an arrest?
- Do you remember ever tampering with evidence? [!]
- Do you remember ever fabricating evidence? [!]
- Do you remember ever destroying evidence? [!]
These are found on page 479-80 of the book.
What point am I making?
Not that police officers are all bad people. But it is assumed that almost no police officer could deny those questions without any anxiety. And those are pretty clear cut matters: destroying and fabricating evidence? Everyone knows those things are wrong and if you've done them you know it. If it is assumed that few, if any, police officers could deny making up evidence against people then I doubt that many, if any, polygraphers could deny having tampered with polygraph results or the like without some anxiety. I think the analogy is very close.
Polygraphers, am I going wrong here? And, of course, if so, where?