Judge Orders Rape Survivors to Take Lie-Detection Test

[XanaDUer]

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/03/19/judge-orders-rape-survivors-to-take-lie-detection-test/

File this under “For Real?!”

Cleveland, Ohio Juvenile Court Judge Alison Floyd is forcing sexual assault survivors to take polygraph tests before their attackers are sentenced. To date, at least four teenage girls have been ordered to do so. All have refused.

According to reports from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, even prosecutors see the problem. Ordering sex crime survivors to undergo polygraph testing exceeds judicial authority over victims, says Assistant County Prosecutor Nicole Ellis.

Plain Dealer reporters Rachel Dissell and Leila Atassi write that Judge Floyd also “ordered the teenage boys who were accused of rape and other sex crimes in those cases to undergo polygraph examinations as part of an assessment done before the teens would be sentenced.” Although the defendants have not objected, this raises procedural concerns about due process for teens in the legal system.

[laconicsax]

1. Despicable.

:puke:

[rock]

2. You know a lie detector

is as accurate as a shiny new penny.

[miscsoc]

9. yeah, that's kind of an important point

it's a fact that lie detectors are not accurate at all. it's pseudoscience.

I don't know why lie detectors are ever used in a legal context - it's as if people think the idea that you can scientifically determine if people are telling the truth is so attractive that they are willing to believe it regardless of the evidence to the contrary. Even if this involves massive perversion of justice.

[Warpy]

28. Actually, they're remarkably hard to beat

Only sociopaths can beat them consistently.

However, they're not quite accurate enough to be admissible in court.

In this case, testing the defendants is worthless since there are still prevalent beliefs out there among the population of young males that paying for a dinner and a movie on a date is tantamount to paying for sex. They honestly believe they are owed access to a girl's body and could pass that polygraph with flying colors, depending on how the questions were asked.

That judge needs her screws tightened.

[Lucky Luciano]

33. Rapists seem a bit like sociopaths to me. nt

[provis99]

36. Nonsense. Lie detectors are completely unreliable.

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

[MajorChode]

40. About as remarkably hard as a coin flip

Lie detectors are junk science. Period.

[Brooklyns_Finest]

42. Not hard to beat

My buddy is a fireman. He had no problem passing the "drug" question despite admitting to me that he has done every drug imaginable, including crack. When they asked him if he ever did drugs on the poligraph, he plainly stated "no". I hardly believe my friend is a sociopath.

[JonLP24]

43. That reminds me of story

Someone told at work. He actually didn't work with us but for another company inside the same warehouse. Before I go on this could be totally untrue but anyways he says when he applied to be a police officer he was spooked by the polygraph because he admitted to smoking cannabis. Anyways he says a friend told him to "pretend to be somebody else" and said that he did and it worked. I can't remember though if he became a cop and quit(he's working in a warehouse at the time) as it was a few years ago. Like I said it may not be true so take it with a grain of salt.

[Brooklyns_Finest]

45. My buddy is cool as ice

I asked him how he is going to pass the drug question and he said that he's never done drugs before. I was like dude, I know you, you were the biggest pot head in high school He said "i don't know what your talking about, I've neer done drugs in my life. I said okay, lets see if that works on the poligraph. Sure enough, this fool passed the test!

[nosmokes]

3. it boggles.

[uppityperson]

4. UPDATE, "Judge Alison Floyd backs away from ordering polygraphs"

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/04/judge_backs_away_from_ordering.html

Judge Alison Floyd backs away from ordering polygraphs for sexual assault victims

Floyd had ordered three juveniles to take the exams earlier this year after she found the teen boys accused of attacking them delinquent -- the juvenile court equivalent of guilty.
(clip)
The judge explained in the same entry that she had ordered the polygraphs of the victim and her attacker after considering the "significant discrepancy" in the stories both youths told. Floyd said she wanted to "verify his truthfulness to determine an appropriate treatment services and an appropriate victim and community safety plan."

[Iggo]

5. "All have refused."

:applause:

[LAGC]

6. What do the "victims" have to hide?

Unless its a false accusation, which will ruin the life of the defendants forever, why not just take the polygraph and satisfy the judge?

Rape is a serious accusation, can put away someone for life. I don't see the problem with making the alleged victims submit to a polygraph. We already make them take the stand. We should be absolutely certain before we lock someone away and throw away the key, especially if the defendants pass their polygraphs saying they didn't do the crime.

[miscsoc]

10. The point is polygraphs don't work either way.

Even if they pass the test, they could still be lying, and vice versa. If we had reliable lie detectors maybe using them would make sense, but we just don't.

[myrna minx]

13. Because polygraph tests are not reliable, which is why they are inadmissible

as evidence against you in court in most cases.

[LAGC]

16. Most states use them to gauge sex offenders.

If they aren't reliable, why are they court-ordered as part of pre-sentence investigations?

Generally, as part of a psychosexual evaluation, a convicted sex offender is forced to admit to all his victims so that the sentencing judge knows how severe his sentence should be. If its good enough to use to sentence sex offenders, why not the alleged "victims" as well? My understanding is that under a competent interrogator's administration, polygraphs are 90% accurate. The chances of both the defendant and accuser successfully fooling the polygraph seems quite low. The intrusion is very slight considering the weight of consequences a false conviction can have on a defendant.

[pitohui]

30. because there's money in horseshit

look, everybody knows that polygraphs are not science, but there's money to be made in ordering tests so tests will be ordered

it is not "good enough" to use to sentence sex offenders, and evidence taken from polygraphs is not evidence at all

they may be used as a psychological ploy to play on the guy's mind to get him to confess, and who knows if THOSE confessions are even valid? we have learned from the 1980s that plenty of "sex offenders" from the child care centers were innocent victims in the end...

sheesh

[LAGC]

31. Well, I fully expect you to start advocating for an end to forced polygraphs for sex offenders then.

Because the fact of the matter is, they ARE being used, and people are being put away for many, many years and often denied parole because of them.

[uppityperson]

19. This judge backed down from this order.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/04/judge_backs_away_from_ordering.html

Floyd admitted in a recent journal entry that she has "limited jurisdiction over a victim or witness" and that she had no authority over the victim after she made the decision to find the accused youth delinquent.

[jmowreader]

22. Polygraphs are an intimidation tool more than anything else

I read once of a police department who had a REALLY stupid subject they caught doing something, but he kept saying he didn't. I think he broke into a house. Anyway, they caught the guy red handed and he kept saying, "I didn't do it, I didn't do it, I didn't do it." So they decided to just fuck with this guy. First, they got a sheet of paper and wrote "You're Lying!" on it in big letters. They put the paper in their copier. Then they brought this asshole in and told him they were going to give him a "lie detector" test. They put a metal salad bowl on his head (quit laughing, it gets better) and put him in a chair next to the copier so he couldn't see the control panel. A cop stood behind him, and another cop started questioning him. Every time the guy told a lie, the cop at the control panel pushed the button and "You're Lying!" came out of the machine. Eventually the guy confessed. It got thrown out of court for witness intimidation--the perp really was stupid enough to believe he was polygraphed.

A real polygraph machine is even less accurate than these cops' homemade one, but a lot of people think those things are so dead-on accurate they're scared shitless of them.

[JonLP24]

46. Is that true?

I've seen that copier machine trick in both Homicide Life on the Street and The Wire.

OK looking for the story I ran into Snoopes and they describe the story as "unclassifiable veracity" http://www.snopes.com/legal/colander.asp

[pitohui]

29. polygraphs don't work, and victims are already fragile

my dad is as honest as the day is long but when his job demanded that they start taking polygraphs he said "fuck no" because he knew that as a nervous, conscientious person he would be more likely to give a false result and have his life ruined

the company quietly dropped the polygraph idea a short while later

nervous people who are honest but conscientious could be branded as "liars" just because a question is badly phrased or they feel the question could be answered in two ways, creating a stress reaction

polygraphs are only reliably beatable by sociopaths so of course sociopaths like them...

if you can't see why a recent rape victim would have a stress reaction, well, bless your heart, is all i can see

this is bullshit

use dna or another method of verifying people's claims, not the polygraph

[Mariana]

34. Badly phrased questions will do anyone in.

A case of cigarettes was stolen from the store I worked in, and the owner decided to have all employees polygraphed thinking one of us stole them. Most likely the stockroom door was accidentally left unlocked and someone just tried the door during a busy time, found it unlocked, walked in and walked out with the box and no one saw him. 12-packs of beer went missing like that out of the cooler pretty frequently - sometimes we caught them, sometimes we didn't.

One of the questions the brilliant practitioner asked was "Do you know what happened to the missing cigarettes?" We were supposed to answer "NO" if we hadn't taken part in the theft. But of course everyone knew what had happened to them; they'd been stolen out of the stockroom! The practitioner refused to change the question so we could answer "NO" honestly.

I don't know what the results were for everyone, but no one was fired and the boss never tried the lie-detector thing again as long as I worked there.

[Pithlet]

37. The defendants were found delinquent. No quotes necessary.

Polygraph tests are pseudoscience and they may have been advised not to. The judge backed off.

[JonLP24]

44. Defendants don't have to take polygraph tests

and if they do take one it is inadmissible in court.
(BTW the Green River Killer passed his poly)

so I don't see why victims are required too.

[Mariana]

7. The victims' polygraphs were ordered AFTER

the defendants were found guilty?

What on earth for?

If the judge had reasonable doubts about the guilt of the defendants, why didn't she call them not guilty? Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

[dems_rightnow]

12. Juries find them guilty

There was conflicting testimony, and she was going to use the results for the purpose of determining sentencing.

[Mariana]

21. These are juveniles.

They don't go before juries unless they're being tried as adults. The second article above says the judge ordered the polygraphs after SHE (the judge) found the boys delinquent (guilty).

The time to determine if the victim is lying is NOT after the defendants have been found guilty!

[LiberalFighter]

8. She needs to be removed from the bench.

[Better Today]

11. Y'know, I could see the value of determining the honesty of both alleged victims and

alleged perpetrators, if and only IF, a lie detection system were fool proof, which none are to date that I've heard of.

Here are my reasons. One, we would find out if either party is outright lying. That would be the obvious answer, again if a system would totally reliable.

However there are some other potential benefits. For example, let's suggest that both parties pass their respective, reliable lie-detection tests. It would let the judge know that the alleged perp is more in need of behavioral counseling with respect to respecting women, than a need to be incarcerated with hardened criminals.

All in all not a bad idea for many criminal and civil cases, but not until a completely reliable system has been found.

[FooshIt]

14. false accusations do happen

not saying they happened in this case, but it has happened to me and it sucks.

[moriah]

18. They do, but would a polygraph honestly be able to tell the difference?

I'd be more inclined to think a stronger emotional response would be more indicative of veracity of the statement, but some legitimate rape victims will wrap themselves in a detached calm, numb themselves to cope. A polygraph tries to measure emotional response, with a stronger response indicating deception. I don't see how it would work at all for this application.

[Mariana]

24. Would you have felt better if your accuser was polygraphed

AFTER you were found guilty in court? Hypothetically, of course, if it had gone that far. That's what happened here. Not forgetting, of course, that polygraphs are inadmissible so it's likely that your conviction would stand no matter what the results.

I still can't understand why the judge didn't rule Not Guilty if she didn't believe the accusers.

[FooshIt]

26. its just hard because the evidence is someones word

so that evidence has to be examined

[Mariana]

32. Again, AFTER the guilty verdict?

If there's doubt about the accuser's honesty, shouldn't that be examined BEFORE pronouncing someone guilty? These are juveniles, so there wasn't a jury. The judge convicted them. AFTER that, she ordered the victims to take polygraphs.

[moriah]

15. Even if polygraphs were better than just a hair shy of reading tea leaves....

... in their ability to predict lies, there's no way in fucking hell that they would work in that situation. The principle is to measure the body's responses and increased emotional response indicates deception. If you ask a rape victim about her attack, you're going to get a hell of an emotional response!

What on earth was this judge smoking, and can we please ban it?

[lumberjack_jeff]

17. This happened in April

In May she rescinded the order.

There are peculiarities in juvenile court which make this story very confusing.

[uppityperson]

20. However, no one but us notices SHE RESCINDED THIS ORDER

since it isn't in the OP and reading down the thread or checking the validity of something often doesn't happen.

[moriah]

23. So she went to rehab instead of continuing to smoke whatever gave her such poor judgment.

It still doesn't negate the fact that she had to be out of her mind to make such an order in the first place.

Nor does it negate the fact that polygraphs are not likely to be the best tool to determine the veracity of a rape victim's statement. I'm glad that neither of these four girls were put through a polygraph examination, but if one judge was such a crackhead and ordered it, you know that others have considered it.

[Mariana]

25. Sure, AFTER the victims refused to do it.

They called her on her bluff - she had no authority to order this and I think she figured they didn't know that and would go along. If they'd submitted, it probably would never have been reported.

[uppityperson]

27. I agree. However it makes the OP outdated. Sorry if posting current info upsets you

[howaboutme]

35. I don't disagree

both the alleged victim and perp should have equal rights. Both the victims and the accused should be required to take a lie detector just as Al Gore's supposed masseuse accuser was required.

Too many of the "he said she said" cases of rape charges have resulted in disclosure of false allegations by the so-called victim. It needs balanced. The accusers name should be made public just as the alleged rapist. The recent case in Hofstra, Long Island where a girl claimed several students raped her ended when she admitted she lied. The judge said she "had problems". She should have more problems and be charged with the same crime as those she lied about.

[Curmudgeoness]

39. I can see your point about "he said she said" and false allegations.

And false allegations can haunt someone for the rest of their lives. However I will not agree that the victim of a rape's name should be made public, for several reasons. One reason is that rape is still stigmatized, as if the victim is at fault, and this will haunt her for the rest of her life too---and she did nothing wrong. I, for one, would not have the nerve to accuse a rapist if I knew that I would have to deal with accusations myself (she asked for it, she dressed wrong).

[Omaha Steve]

38. It is not admissible in court because it is not 100% reliable

How could a judge even think this. This is not part of the healing process.

K&R because this is a travesty that needs attention.

OS

[BrklynLiberal]

41. I was under the impression that lie-detector results are not admissable in court..so what would be .

the point?

[Puregonzo1188]

47. Aren't lie detectors inadmissible in court? And if so, how can a judge

order anyone to take one? Perhaps he should just throw the young women in the water and see if they float?