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Arguments Against Polygraph Testing

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“Lie detector tests have become a popular cultural icon - from crime dramas to comedies to advertisements” (American Psychology Association) Polygraph tests have been shown throughout several years as the scientific method of convicting criminals. But this method has been proven incorrect. The test is not completely falsifiable because there is not an actual method to determine if someone is lying 100 percent of the time. Polygraph tests are not admissible in court due to the little amount of scientific information to judge someone’s ability to tell the truth. This type of theory would be considered a part of the pseudoscience, and throughout this article would be proven why.

To continue to describe this claim, polygraph testing has been …show more content…

Polygraph testing would be considered an exaggerated claim because there is no scientific validity to back up the emotional response. “Because it measures physiological arousal rather than lying per se, the polygraph test is prone to mislabeling innocent persons guilty.” (Lilienfeld, Landfield 1222) As previously discussed, this test is based upon emotions, which the article by Scott Lilienfeld and Kristen Landfield further proves the pseudoscience behind polygraph testing. Throughout law enforcement and police officials’ careers, they are faced with daily challenges in pseudoscience, and the article further describes how lie detection is a part of that process. It also discusses in the article that they agree that the lie detectors should not be administered in a court of law. Another theory that comes into effect when discussing lie detector testing is terror management theory. This is a theory that is “proposing awareness of our death leaving an underlying sense of terror” (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Namy, Woolf, Cramer, & Schmaltz 14). If the test is administered during a murder trial and the polygraph is what will foresee the conviction, one may have too many emotions attached to thoroughly answer the questions truthfully. Thus, the test may result in something fatal or just as consequential causing false answers. People are more afraid to die …show more content…

By paying attention to key warning signs of pseudoscience many people, including figures of authority, are able to understand why basing someone’s heart rate, blood pressure and skin conductivity is an unscientific way of determining truth. (Lilienfeld, 1226 ) This just further proves why polygraphs are not admissible in court, let alone in the scientific

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A psychology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, Saul Kassin stated that, “It is stressful enough to get innocent people to confess but add to that a layer of grief and shock and perhaps even some guilt.” Some factors that also contributed to these fathers’ false confessions are trauma, lack of sleep and highly manipulative interrogation techniques used by police officers. Research also show that 25 percent of wrongful convictions is caused by false confessions ("False Confessions or Admissions,"

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PAPER 1: FALSE CONFESSION ASSIGNMENT Legal issues involved in the interrogation of criminal suspects are the leading cause for wrongful conviction of innocent individuals based off of false confessions. The primary motive for police officials is to close a case with a written and verbal confession from a possible suspect. Confessions override evidence if the confession is convincing enough to the jurors. Most people assume that people would not confess to a crime they didn’t commit, but due to the harsh interrogation circumstances, psychological coercion and situation factors, these can influence an innocent individual to confess to a crime they didn’t commit.

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Richard miles was wrongfully convicted of murder and attempted murder in 1995 based on eyewitness testimony, false or misleading forensic evidence and official misconduct. The evidence presented at his trial that is useful for this particular research paper is the eyewitness testimony. Thurman the witness in this case identified Miles as the gunman from a photospread that police had given him. Several other witnesses were shown the same photospread but could not identify Miles. Miles was charged with murder and attempted murder.

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Forensic psychology focuses on legal matters such as mental state examinations of criminal defendants, child custody/family law, violence risk assessment, civil law, social science research, mediation/dispute resolution, etc… But in this case, we will be focusing on the matter of “false confessions”. This is seen mainly in interrogations between the interrogator and a suspect. It is when a suspect confesses to a crime and maybe even believes they committed the crime, even though they have not. A confession would be defined as an admission of guilt, whereas a false confession is the admission of guilt by an innocent.

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1254 Words | 6 Pages

In rape cases specifically, a sexual assault forensic exam can be performed on the victim and examined by the forensic examiners to assure the rape did occur. An inclusion of psychologists would lower the bias of the jury as psychologists are educated on the trauma experienced by rape victims and do not have the same negative attitude towards rape victims as many citizens have. A study from 2007 regarding jury accuracy shows how negatively the legislation can also affect the defendant, as juries gave the wrong verdict approximately one in eight times (Tremmel,

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These wrongful convictions occur because the criminal justice system had many flaws. It was not only the system that had flaws but also the people on the board. The prosecutors "opposed testing, arguing that it would make no difference" whether or not those being convicted got DNA tested (Garrett 1). Confessions was one of the causes that often led to the downfall of those innocently convicted. In the case of Jeffrey Deskovic, the police officer was supposed to conduct the polygraph examination.

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803 Words | 4 Pages

The aspect of psychology and law research from this week is correlated to the week four-course material is most relevant to the topic of interrogations and false confession techniques that are used by the detectives. In the case that was presented in the documentary West of Memphis is an investigation of a failure of justice in Arkansas. The interrogation methods from the detectives lead to a false confession. A false confession is an admission to a criminal act that the confessor did not commit (Greene & Heilbrun, 2014, p. 165).

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Despite this, the police still use them, as they do with Tommy Ward, when he goes to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) to prove to the law enforcement agents that he had nothing to do with Denice Haraway. Ward takes the test, but the results of the polygraph are never revealed. The agent (WHO???) tells Tommy that he failed the test, and whether or not this is true, the results mean nothing. If it were true that Tommy failed the test, it would not mean he had a hand in the crime; his failure could be attributed to the 40% error rate of polygraphs (Dowler, n.d.).

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A lot of people don´t stand up for what they think is right. I know sometimes it is discouraging to say something without someone saying about you said. even if you are hated for saying something that you think is right in your beliefs. I think that Atticus Finch is someone who stands up for what he believes in.

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1297 Words | 6 Pages

Are You Sure? Why have more than two-thousand people exonerated for crimes they didn’t commit? Eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions in the U.S. Memory can be influenced by anxiety, stress, reconstructive memory and other factors possibly affecting the testimony of the eyewitness and in turn, misleading the jury. I think that when subjects witness a crime they will struggle to remember important details of the event, and their recollection could be easily altered. This is because the reconstructive memory can be influenced by factors such as stress, anxiety, and verbal cues.

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(Ahlmeyer, Heil,, McKee, & English, 2000) Research found evidence that polygraph has been shown to change features

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Eyewitness misinterpretation is the highest contributing factor to wrongful convictions. The majority of the wrongful convictions have been corrected by DNA. Exoneration cases that have involved convictions are based on mistaken identification and/or mistaken or overlooked evidence. While there had been evidence in the book “The Picking Cotton,” of police misconduct/ biased based on race. While prosecutors and law enforcement officials are expected, to be honest, uphold the law, have the best intentions to protect society and act with integrity but the pressure to get the right perpetrator my lead police to act inappropriate, unfair or in an unlawful manner, government misconduct can include withholding or fabricating evidence, suggestive ways

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1095 Words | 5 Pages

This can be used for legal purposes. This type of testing can be used to identify catastrophe victim (these are people who die in accidents or disasters that can not physically be identified), identify crime victims, rule out (find innocent) or implicate (find guilty) crime

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1225 Words | 5 Pages

Furthermore, there can be several factors at play when a wrongful conviction occurs and each case is unique. Three of the more common and detrimental factors that will be explored in this essay are eyewitness error, the use of jailhouse informants and professional and institutional misconduct. Firstly, eyewitness testimony can be a major contributor to a conviction and is an important factor in wrongful conviction (Campbell & Denov, 2016, p. 227). Witness recall and, frankly, the human emory are not as reliable as previously thought. In fact there has been much research showing the problems with eyewitness testimony such as suggestive police interviewing, unconscious transference, and malleability of confidence (Campbell & Denov, 2016, p.227).

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250 Words | 1 Pages

(2009) and Fridlund et al. (2012) respectively. However, these hypotheses have gained much traction in the wider psychological community despite Powell, Digdon, Harris and Smithson (in press) theorizing a much more compelling candidate, Albert Barger. Ethics in psychology is a contemporary consideration and this fresh perspective has dictated a popular practice of re-examining the ethics of historical experiments with superfluous criticism. It is plausible that the outrage over possible unethical practice has distracted from the more parsimonious option presented by Powell et al.

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