Opinion ID: 2623542
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: polygraph examination procedures

Text: A polygraph examination combines interrogation with physiological measurements made by the instrument, or polygraph. The instrument typically measures and records an examinee's heart rate, blood pressure, rate and depth of respiration and flow of electrical current at the skin surface as an examiner poses questions that require yes or no answers. Blood pressure is measured by a cuff over the biceps. Electrodermal activity (activity of the eccrine sweat glands) is measured by electrodes on the palm or on two fingers. Rate and depth of breathing are measured by pneumographs located on the chest and abdomen. Fluctuations in the heart and blood are recorded by a cardiosphygmograph, while a galvanometer records the body's electrical activity. [1] The sensors attached to the examinee are connected to the instrument by wires. The data is recorded by analog or digital technology. Because the first analog instruments recorded the data with several pens writing lines on a piece of moving paper, the record of the examinee's physiological responses is known as the polygraph chart. [2] The instrument does not measure or detect lies directly. Instead, proponents believe it measures physiological responses that are stronger when an examinee lies than at other times. A lie in response to a question may cause a reaction such as fear of detection or psychological arousal that changes heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, or skin conductance relative to what they were before the question was asked and relative to what they are after control questions are asked. [3] Polygraph testing is used for three main purposes: 1. Screening of job applicants by law enforcement or other government agencies (preemployment screening); 2. Screening by agencies involved in national security of current employees; and 3. Investigating specific incidents, as in criminal cases. [4] When police conduct a polygraph test of a suspect, it is considered to be under adversarial conditions. In contrast, when defense counsel asks a client to take a privately administered test, it is called a friendly test. If the client passes the friendly test, defense counsel will often attempt to enter the results into evidence, and this is the more typical background for an evidentiary hearing like the present one. [5] There are three major questioning techniques used in polygraph examinations: the relevant-irrelevant test (RIT), the guilty knowledge test (GKT), and the control question or comparison question test (CQT). The CQT's are the most widely used techniques in criminal investigations and judicial proceedings. [6] Because the CQT is the most used test in criminal cases and because the tests in the instant cases were apparently CQT's, this Court's analysis will focus on that technique. Under Rule 11-707 NMRA 2003, tests using any of the three techniques would be admissible if that Rule's criteria were met. The CQT tries to determine if the examinee is lying in response to a specific question or questions about the incident at issue (relevant questions). This involves comparing physiological responses to the relevant questions with physiological responses to control questions. Because the cuff on the arm begins to hurt after several minutes, a limited number of questions, about ten, are asked to complete one chart. [7] Rule 11-707 requires that an examination include at least three charts. Prior to the actual CQT, there is a pre-test interview. The examiner and examinee discuss the test, test procedure, examinee's medical history, and details of the test issues. Both relevant and control questions are reviewed, to minimize surprise and to ensure the examinee understands the questions. This portion of the examination may last from 30 minutes to 2 hours or more. [8] The expectation is that innocent examinees will react more strongly to control questions than to relevant questions, and guilty examinees will react more strongly to relevant questions. For example, a relevant question might be, Did you rob the First City Bank? Control questions are vague, cover a long period of time, and describe acts that most people have committed but are reluctant or embarrassed to admit during a polygraph exam. That is, if the examinee were suspected of theft, a control question could be, During the first 22 years of your life did you ever take something that did not belong to you? Innocent people answer the relevant questions truthfully, but are expected to lie or be uncertain about their truthfulness when answering the control questions. That is, in these probable-lie control question tests, the instructions are designed to induce innocent people to answer no to control questions, even though most would then be lying. In contrast, guilty people are expected to be more concerned about failing the test because their answers to the relevant questions are lies, and they are likely to be more disturbed by the relevant questions, or so the reasoning behind CQT goes. Thus, the art of the polygrapher lies in composing control and relevant questions that elicit the appropriate relative responses from truthful and deceitful parties. See State v. Porter, [241 Conn. 57] 698 A.2d 739, 762 (Conn.1997)(assuming without deciding that polygraph evidence met Daubert criteria but upholding per se rule barring its admissibility because prejudice outweighed probative value). In another version of the CQT, the directed-lie test, examinees are instructed to lie to control questions such as, Before 2002, did you ever make even one mistake? The examiner tells the examinee that these questions will ensure that the examinee will be correctly classified as truthful or deceptive on the polygraph test to follow. Where the polygrapher in the probable-lie test chooses control questions during the pre-test interview to suit each examinee, the directed-lie control questions are a small set of simple questions that are much easier to standardize. [9] After the test, the charts are scored by a polygrapher or by a computer. Each relevant question response is measured against an adjacent control question response. Scores for each comparison range from +3 to -3. When the response to the control question is much stronger than to the relevant question, it is scored +3, indicating truthfulness. A score of -3 indicates a much stronger response to the relevant question relative to the response to the control question, indicating deception. If the two responses are about the same, the score is 0, with scores of ± 1 and ± 2 for intermediate values. The scores for all three charts are totaled. Examinees with scores of +6 or greater are considered truthful; those with scores of -6 or lower are deemed to be lying. Scores between +5 and -5 are inconclusive. The total score may range from approximately +30 to -30. [10] But see United States v. Galbreth, 908 F.Supp. 877, 894 (D.N.M.1995), where the leading proponent of polygraph evidence, Dr. David Raskin, scored the defendant's charts as +32. Charts may also be scored by computers using standardized algorithms, a relatively recent development.