Ohio Court Admits Lie Detector Tests As Evidence 198
An anonymous reader writes "Last month, an Ohio court set a new precedent by allowing polygraph test results to be entered as evidence in a criminal trial. Do lie detectors really belong in the court room? AntiPolygraph.org critiques the polygraph evidence from the this precedential case (Ohio v. Sharma)."
Nope (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nice, unbiased source. (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree, that considering how many minor things are consider to taint the jury, a polygraph is probably just about the worst of them. The reliability just isn't there, and even when they are accurate, they don't really give any indication of what the lie actually is.
Worse, they tend to work worse when the subject is already under stress. Overall, the technology just isn't there, and won't ever get there. If anything is more reliable, it'll be of a different form, probably something that scans the brain directly. Even that though is going to be tough.
Accuracy as against usefulness (Score:5, Interesting)
As I understand it, the most useful (from the police's point of view) way to use of lie detectors is psychological: pretend that they're 100% accurate, get the suspect to say "I didn't do it", bluff and claim that "The Machine Knows You're Lying", and get them to give a confession that way. Of course, such a strategy will fail if the polygraph becomes so widely used that everyone becomes familiar with its limitations.
Re:Weight vs admissibility (Score:1, Interesting)
Seriously, the jurors will see this as "science" and take it as fact that the person questioned under the polygraph did/did not lie as the examiner claims.
On a personal note, I have NO training whatsoever, and I have beaten the polygraph twice.
Re:Ohio, eh? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is somewhat offtopic (Score:1, Interesting)
A long time ago my brother worked for Electronic Boutique (AKA EB)
One of the employees stole some money from the cash register and it was pinned on my brother and some other guy.
Well funny thing is they both recieved Lie detector tests and failed. As more and more evidence came in they found the other guy guilty and my brother innocent.
But EB was convinced that my brother took it or had some affiliation because of the lie detector. Now they didn't use that as evidence in court however the managers at EB had accepted those results.
Now on a personal note my brother wouldn't take the money. He is an honest hard working citizen and I just couldn't see him doing something like that, so I know it wasn't him.
But basically what I am getting at is the lie detector was not used in court however because of the results my brother lost his job there. They simply did not give him any more hours.
I see that as being unfair, but yeah...just thought I would share.
Re:Accuracy as against usefulness (Score:5, Interesting)
No repeatable study or sequence of studies has demonstrated that the polygraph as deployed for interrogation, screening or any other diagnostic purpose, has 70% accuracy. Or, to be more precise, better than 30% false positive or false negative rates.
The argument is not well served by taking figures like this from the air. If you care to cite a particular study, we can debate its methodology, statistical power, and freedom from confounds such as selective sampling or lack of blinding to the "true" result.
Re:Accuracy as against usefulness (Score:4, Interesting)
There's plenty, plenty more examples in the history of psychological experimentation, but people can be played pretty readily. That's why psychopaths do so well, it's really not as hard as we'd like to believe to control our thoughts.
Even worse, a tinfoil hat provides little protection against this sort of thing.
As to the false confessions bit, it's my belief(can't cite good evidence for this though), that people expect to get a plea-bargain of sorts. For a judge to go light on the sentencing if they just admit that they did it rather than maintain their denial. If I give you two choices, one where the judge is going to probably lock you away for the next 20 years, and one where you can confess and only get 5-10, which are you going to choose? Keep in mind that we already have multiple eye-witnesses that place you at the scene, and DNA evidence.
Re:Nice, unbiased source. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Weight vs admissibility (Score:2, Interesting)
I had not commited the thefts. However, it hadn't escaped my notice that those VTRs cost more than two months' living expenses, and my thoughts had lingered once or twice on how easy it would be to get the equipment out of the building. I was a bit of a punk, and looked it.
During the interrogation, I felt so guilty about having considered the very thefts that eventually occurred, and was so claustrophobic -- there's a bellows-thingy around your chest and a blood-pressue cuff and other restraints reminiscent of the electric chair -- and the guy stood between me and the door for good measure! -- and I was so nervous about emitting a damning response that when the questions moved on from "what is your name" to "did you steal", I could actually hear those blasted pens going scribble-scribble. Biofeedback of the worst kind! From then on I chanted "Om Mane Padme Hum" in my head with such intensity that I could barely hear the guy, and I guess that worked to flatten my responses -- the polygraph results were deemed "Inconclusive". Not good enough for my employer....