Opinion ID: 2064272
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Absence of a Stanislawski Stipulation

Text: In State v. Stanislawski, 62 Wis.2d 730, 742, 216 N.W. 2d 8 (1974), this court set out the written stipulation standard for admission of polygraph tests and a polygraph examiner's interpretation of the same in the following language: As to polygraph tests taken by the defendant and expert testimony related thereto, polygraph testimony is admissible in this state, as in Arizona under Valdez `. . . to corroborate other evidence of a defendant's participation in the crime charged,' and, `If he takes the stand such evidence is admissible to corroborate or impeach his own testimony.' The required preconditions or qualifications for the admission of such testimony, in this state as in Arizona under Valdez, are as follows: (1) That the district attorney, defendant and his counsel all sign a written stipulation providing for the defendant's submission to the test and for the subsequent admission at trial of the graphs, and the examiner's opinion thereon on behalf of either defendant or the state. After his arrest, Barrera submitted to a polygraph examination with the consent of his attorneys. However, it was understood that the results of the polygraph test would not be admissible as the parties had not signed a written stipulation providing for the same as set out in Stanislawski. As noted earlier, the defendant was examined by Robert Anderson of the State Crime Lab on March 7 and again on March 17, 1977. However, Anderson determined that due to Barrera's anxiety ratio, he was unable to reach any definitive conclusions regarding the results of these tests. After advising the defendant and his attorneys of this fact, Barrera agreed to submit to a third test on April 4, 1977. On this date Anderson conducted a pretest interview of the defendant, his usual procedure in preparation for a polygraph examination. During the course of this interview, Barrera admitted the Beaver Dam and Missouri murders. At trial, and at the time of the hearing on the motion for a new trial, the defendant failed to claim that his statement to Anderson on April 4th was inadmissible for want of a Stanislawski stipulation. Rather, the Stanislawski issue was raised for the first time in the court of appeals. As pointed out earlier, the appellate court reached the stipulation question on its own because it felt that the issue of the admissibility of Barrera's statement to Robert Anderson on April 4, 1977 is likely to arise at retrial if not disposed of here. It held that the defendant's April 4th statement was inadmissible under their interpretation of the logic and holding of State v. Schlise, 86 Wis.2d 26, 271 N.W.2d 619 (1978). In Schlise, supra, this court stated that the Stanislawski written stipulation rule applied to information elicited in a post-mechanical interview and thus in the absence of a written stipulation, statements made by an examinee during post-examination questioning were held inadmissible. Schlise was an appeal of the conviction of Donald Schlise as party to the crime of first degree murder. The charges arose out of the killing of Donald's wife, Irene Schlise. The defendant submitted to a polygraph examination and confessed to the examiner, Robert Anderson, during the course of the post-test interview. In this interview, Anderson persuaded Schlise to talk about the death of his wife and confronted the defendant with the test results he had just received every time he suspected Schlise was not telling the truth. The court quoted the following example of the type of questioning Anderson engaged in: `The first chart, right, we concluded basically four things. OK. Number one, you did ask someone to kill your wife, OK, we concluded that. We also concluded that you hired someone to harm her. Ok, this is sort of a secondary relevant issue concerned with the set up. And we also concluded one other thing. Do you know for sure who killed Irene. We concluded those three things. Now Don, I've been involved in this type of work for a long time and there's always two sides to every story. OK. What I don't know right now for sure I know you contracted with someone to kill, not necessarily kill your wife, but to harm her. Sometimes when you make up a contract like this things go a little bit wrong and sometimes maybe you had no intentions of say, really killing your wife when you hired this guy but what happened he went a little bit too far and she died. Now I don't know for sure at this point whether that's what happened or in fact you actually did ask this person to kill her. Don, again, many many things cause this. It can be caused from an unhappy marriage. It can be caused from pressure at home, pressures at work. In other words, what I'm saying is sometimes you get up in the morning and you touch something and everything just sort of turns to shit, doesn't it. I think we all have these days. Don, I can look at you now and some of the visual signs are beginning to really set in, the dryness of the mouth, the dilation of the eyes, you've got a lot on your mind now, the thing is Don that to get some psychological and also physical relief from this I would suggest now that you start telling the truth. Tell me exactly what happened, how this thing got started.' `Sure, OK, that's what I want you to be. Now, Don I also feel that you wanted to dispose of your wife from looking at your charts and I think right now you're rationalizing a little bit.' `Now wait a minute. Don, before you say too much more and get yourself out on a limb, I know you're not being truthful and I'll tell you why. Some of the names I read to you we know you talked to, OK?' `Sure, we know you talked to them, and we know that the initial contact back in July and August was to kill your wife, OK? One of these individuals has already come forward, and given a complete statement and this is the reason you're down here. So we can more or less verify to see if he's telling the truth.' Schlise, supra at 40-41. At the Schlise trial, Anderson's testimony relating to the results of the polygraph examination and the defendant's statement in the post-test interview were received over the defense counsel's objection on the grounds of lack of voluntariness and the absence of a Stanislawski stipulation. This court set aside the conviction and remanded the case for a new trial as the test results and Schlise's post-examination statement were admitted into evidence without a written stipulation and because we had serious doubts regarding the voluntariness of the defendant's confession due to the psychologically coercive tactics of the examiner as detailed in the record. Schlise, supra at 49. We recited our concern respecting the voluntariness issue in the following language: We further conclude that upon the remand for a new trial upon proper motion by the defendant, another Goodchild hearing should be conducted to determine whether the post-mechanical phase of the polygraph examination was so psychologically coercive as to render the defendant's admissions involuntary, and whether the subsequent statements were voluntary or so tainted by the prior statement to Anderson (if it was) so it cannot be said they were freely and voluntary given. Id. Thus, the written stipulation issue was not the sole concern in Schlise regarding the decision to exclude the defendant's statement in the post-test interview. There are a number of important differences between the facts of this case and those of Schlise. In Schlise, we concluded that the Stanislawski stipulation rule applied because: The post-mechanical interview was so closely associated with the mechanical or electronic testing, both as to time and content, that it must be considered as one event and because of the lack of a Stanislawski stipulation excluded from evidence. (Emphasis supplied.) Schlise, supra at 43-44. The close association in both time and content between the mechanical test and the post-test interview in Schlise arose from the fact that the interview occurred only twenty minutes after the mechanical test (time) and that the examiner used concurrent test results and psychologically coercive tactics that posed serious questions as to the voluntariness of Schlise's statements (content). In this case, contrary to Schlise, there was no interpretation and use of concurrent test results as no mechanical test was given to Barrera on the date of the confession, April 4, 1977. Thus, this case lacks the close association between the content of both the mechanical test and the interview in Schlise. Moreover, since a mechanical test was not administered in this case on April 4, 1977, the only test results that this interview could be associated with as to the time element are the inconclusive results obtained on the 7th and 17th of March, some 28 and 18 days before the confession. Thus, as contrasted with the twenty minute time span in Schlise, the requirement of a close association in time is not present in this case. Further, in support of our conclusion that this case lacks a temporal association between the pretest interview and a mechanical test, we quote the following language from Schlise: This is not intended to suggest that all post-examination interviews between a subject and the examiner will be subsumed into the special category of polygraph evidence and fall within Stanislawski. Turner v. State, 76 Wis.2d 1, 250 N.W.2d 706 (1977), and McAdoo v. State, 65 Wis.2d 596, 223 N.W.2d 521 (1974) . . . are clear authority for the opposing view, i.e., that in certain factual settings such interviews may be found to be totally discrete from the examination which precedes them. It should be noted, in this regard, that the Anderson interview at issue in Turner took place six days after the polygraph test. (Emphasis supplied.) Schlise, supra at 42. It is apparent from this quotation that the Schlise court determined that the passage of six days in the Turner case between the administration of a polygraph examination and an interview with the examiner on the date a second test was scheduled was sufficient to render the interview a discrete event. As previously noted, Barrera was tested on March 7 and March 17, 28 and 18 days prior to the April 4 interview. Thus, under our holding in Turner v. State, 76 Wis.2d 1, 250 N.W.2d 706 (1977) as distinguished in Schlise, the long lapse of time in this case between the administration of a mechanical test and the date of the confession, rendered the April 4th interview a discrete event in relation to the prior two tests, and, therefore, this interview was not closely associated in time with a mechanical test. Schlise, supra, Turner, supra and McAdoo v. State, 65 Wis.2d 596, 223 N.W.2d 521 (1974), demonstrate that insofar as the written stipulation rule is concerned, admission of statements made during the course of an interview with a polygraph examiner is dependent upon whether the interview is a discrete event with respect to the mechanical portion of a polygraph test. Under Schlise, the interview will not be considered a separate event where it is so closely associated with the mechanical or electronic testing, both as to time [20 minutes] and content, that it must be considered as one event. . . . Id. at 43. This determination can only be made upon a careful consideration of the totality of the facts and circumstances in the individual case. In Schlise, the close association between the mechanical test and the interview that produced the confession was as noted above supplied by the concurrent test results and psychologically persuasive questioning techniques which under a consideration of the circumstances of the post-test interview appeared to present a substantial voluntariness issue. As compared with Schlise, the confession in this case was made in a pretest interview some 18 days after the examiner's last contact with the defendant. This, in turn, precluded the examiner from confronting the defendant with concurrent test results. But, after a search of the record, we disagree with the defense counsel's argument that the examiner in this case used questionable psychologically coercive tactics to procure Barrera's confession. [5] [6] Thus, in the absence of use of concurrent test results and psychologically persuasive questioning tactics, this case lacks the close association in content between a mechanical test and the pretest interview that was present in Schlise. To repeat, the fact that 18 and 28 days elapsed between the time of the April 4 interview and Barrera's previous tests clearly demonstrate that this interview was not associated in time with a mechanical test. Turner, supra . Thus, we have distinguished the facts and circumstances in this case from those of Schlise in that the April 4 interview was a discrete and separate event and not so closely associated with the mechanical or electronic testing, both as to time and content, that it must be considered as one event. . . . Schlise, supra at 43. Therefore, we hold that the Stanislawski written stipulation rule does not, as the defendant contends, bar the receipt of Barrera's confession in this case.