Polygraphs and Trickery

[orolan]

Now this is how the polygraph really works

Baby sitter granted new trial on reckless homicide
FRANKFORT, Ky. -- The Kentucky Court of Appeals today ordered a new trial for a woman who confessed to a homicide after she was tricked into thinking she had failed a lie-detector test.

Jamie Smith was sentenced to five years in prison for the death of an infant she was baby-sitting in Jefferson County. She passed a polygraph examination, but a Louisville police detective, Sgt. Eddie Payton, led her to believe she had failed.

The judge would not permit Smith to bring up the deception during her trial in Jefferson County Circuit Court.

The appeals court previously upheld Smith's conviction. The Kentucky Supreme Court sent the case back after ruling in a second case that a defendant could introduce evidence of the circumstances surrounding a confession.

The second case involved the same detective -- Payton -- using the same tactic to obtain a confession, the appellate opinion said.

Judge Julia Tackett of Lexington wrote the opinion. Judges David Barber of Prestonsburg and Sara Walter Combs of Stanton concurred.

[suethem]

Orolan,

I wonder if it was CQT or GKT?

Let see, she passed -but she confessed- hmmm.

 Maybe Sgt. Eddie Payton is really Canadian!?

[orolan]

suethem,
I'm wondering if Sgt. Payton administered the polygraphs. The article leads me to believe that he did not. I'll have to check into it further. I suppose their are 3 possible scenarios to this case:
1) She successfully used CM's but broke down under interrogation.
2) She actually is innocent, and was forced into confessing after a marathon interrogation which included the poly.
3) She actually did it and totally lacks any remorse or regret whatsoever, thus her lack of reaction on the poly.

If she used CM's, we know who didn't perform the polys

[orolan]

suethem,
I found it. Sgt. Payton did administer the polygraphs. Apparently Mr. Payton has been a baaad boy. Here's what the Court opinion has to say about him in the first case:

On the evening of April 4, 1995, Det. Kearney caught up with Appellant and Appellant agreed to accompany Det. Kearney to the police station. There, Appellant agreed to take a polygraph examination administered by Lieutenant Eddie Payton ("Lt. Payton").

And look what the Court opinion from yesterday has to say:

The Louisville Police Department obtained a confession from Smith after the detective, Sergeant Eddie Payton, led her to believe that she had failed a polygraph examination when she had in fact passed it.

It appears that he has sustained a drop in rank. Hmmm :-/

[Saidme]

Great detective work Orolan

[suethem]

Orolan,

What a mess.

 If the polygraph is 98% effective then obviously she is innocent right?

But if she confessed then she is obviously guilty right?

Another polygraph success story...

[George W. Maschke]

The Kentucky Court of Appeals "unpublished" opinion (it's not "secret" -- it's just not to be cited as a precedent in future court documents) in this case may be downloaded from the court's website. Go to the Searchable Opinions page and enter the search words "Jamie Smith."

[beech trees]

The Kentucky Court of Appeals "unpublished" opinion (it's not "secret" -- it's just not to be cited as a precedent in future court documents) in this case may be downloaded from the court's website. Go to the Searchable Opinions page and enter the search words "Jamie Smith."

Sargeant Payton (forgive me if his rank drops further during the course of composing this post) has been a busy 'detective'. He used the same tactic in what the Court is calling the 'Rodgers v. Commonwealth' case.

The Rogers case, which involves a confession obtained by the same detective using the same tactics, held that the defendant should have been permitted to introduce evidence of the circumstances surrounding the confession, including the deceptive tactics used by the police in leading the defendant to believe that he had failed a polygraph examination when in fact he had not.

In their opinion, the Supreme Court notes,

The Supreme Court, however, clearly states in that opinion that "the defendant's right to present a defense trumps our desire to inoculate trial proceedings against evidence of dubious scientific value."

Yet another example of the State trying to have it both ways.

[orolan]

beech trees,
The Rodgers case is the first one I quoted, where Mr. Payton is a lieutenant.
George,
What's your take on these cases? Has the theory and knowledge of CM's been around long enough for them to have possibly been a factor in the Rodgers case?

[George W. Maschke]

Orolan,

Here is a brief (and incomplete) timeline of the public availability of countermeasure information.

• The 1st edition of David T. Lykken's A Tremor in the Blood: Uses and Abuses of the Lie Detector, which includes a discussion of polygraph countermeasures, came out in 1981. A second edition appeared in 1998, and is now out of print. Although the information in Lykken's book was (and remains) readily available, finding it requires a trip to the library.
  
• Doug Williams has been selling his pamphlet, "How to Sting the Polygraph" since 1979, and in 1997 began marketing it via his website, www.polygraph.com. Although finding countermeasure information became easier, it didn't come cheap. Williams' manual costs $47.45.
• AntiPolygraph.org went on-line on 18 September 2000, sending a shockwave through the polygraph community by making well-documented countermeasure information readily available and free to anyone seeking it.

The opinion in the Rogers case is dated 2002. Although I don't know when the relevant polygraph examination was administered, countermeasures certainly could have been a factor.

[orolan]

George,
The Rogers case is from 1995. Information in the Opinion seems to indicate that he didn't or wouldn't have used CM's.

[guest from canada]

Is it possible the accused lady took the poly without legal representation?  If so it sounds like she took the test, passed, was told by the snake polygrapher she failed, and was likely told by the police that in light of the "failed" polugraph, she would spend considerable time in prison.  Faced with confessing and presumably receiving significant less prison time, or maintaining her inocence and thinking that due to the poly results she would rot in jail, she confessed?

[Marty]

Speaking of trickery, anyone heard of "Cold Reading" psychological techniques being applied by polygraphers? I ran across this book that suggests it is a must read, especially for forensic interrogations. In fact it ends listing that as an application. Here's a quote from Martin Gardner:

"A marvellous treatise on cold reading. I can't imagine any book on the subject being more definitive!" - Martin Gardner

http://www.ian-rowland.com/ItemsToBuy/ColdReading/FFColdReadingmain.php

-Marty

[orolan]

GFC,
That's exactly what happened, in my opinion.

[George W. Maschke]

Marty,

I think there are indeed similarities between polygraphic interrogation techniques and the cold reading techniques employed by psychics, palm readers, fortune tellers, and other assorted charlatans, especially when it comes to the polygrapher's fishing for details as to why a question might be "bothering" a polygraph subject. For example, after collecting a polygraph chart, some polygraphers will ask the subject, "Which question bothered you the most?"

With regard to cold reading, see Robert Todd Carroll's entry in the Skeptic's Dictionary:

http://www.skepdic.com/coldread.html