Vinson’s Variety: Should you take a polygraph test?
Constantly faced with the imminent threat of a major terrorist attack, along with everyday, home-grown crimes, it is a given reality that our collective police force and justice system — uniformed cops, investigators, prosecutors, judges — must be afforded the tools necessary to keep in check the criminal element, thus maintain, hopefully, an acceptable level of national security.
The lie detector/polygraph test long has been used by law enforcement in battling crime (as well as weeding out undesirables in job selections). With a polygraph, the subject is hooked up to a polygraph machine. The subject is asked a list of questions to which he/she must answer “yes” or “no,” and the polygraph examiner determines if the subject lied or told the truth.
Now, before proceeding further, I will ask you a question, and I want you to be honest with your answer: If, right now, you were accused of a serious crime, but knew you were innocent, would you submit to a polygraph test to help exonerate yourself? Hold on to that thought.
In a similar article a few years back, I mentioned the case of Jerry Ray, brother of James Earl Ray, the alleged yet disputed assassin of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Jerry said this about the polygraph test: “I’ve taken five polygraphs tests during my life time, and I lied on all five and passed all five. I took the first two sometime around 1980-1981, on the popular television show ‘Lie Detector,’ hosted by famous attorney F. Lee Bailey. The reason I agreed to go on Bailey’s show was there were allegations floating around that I was directly involved in the King assassination. Of course, I emphatically denied such because it was not the truth. Bailey contacted me and said if I agreed to take a polygraph on his show, it would help prove I was telling the truth.
“Though I told the truth on what I knew about the King assassination, I readily admit I lied on some questions about some robberies. In fact, around 1986-1987, I admitted it, live, on ‘The Morton Downey Show.’ Even though I lied, I ended up passing both polygraph tests on F. Lee Bailey’s ‘Lie Detector’ show.
“After those with Bailey, I took three more polygraphs that were job-related. I lied on all three, passed all three, secured all three jobs, worked all three minus any conflict, and left all three on my own terms.”
The Sept. 10, 2002 edition of USA Today had an article titled, “Getting to the truth about the polygraph: Experts are trying to verify whether the polygraph is valid.” From that edifying piece, I found this extract to convincingly sum up the status of the polygraph: “A 1998 Supreme Court decision read, in part, “There is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable.”
Also, polygraph results are inadmissible as evidence in Tennessee court cases. Therefore, it looms obvious that Tennessee lawmakers, indeed, have significant reservations about polygraph reliability.
So, with that, let’s ponder this: With the U.S. Supreme Court, our nation’s highest court, saying, “There is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable,” and polygraph results inadmissible as evidence in Tennessee court cases, why would any competent, Tennessee-based investigator or prosecutor, seeking justice above all else, even attempt to utilize a polygraph in reaching the truth in a criminal case?
Considering the unreliability of the polygraph, test results could show a subject was lying when, in fact, he/she was telling the truth.
So, I ask you: Would you still submit to a polygraph test?
(Mike Vinson is a Warren County columnist who can be reached at [email protected].)