Opinion ID: 1494221
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lyons' Testimony about the Threat of a Polygraph Test

Text: Before the State presented the testimony of Gerry's lawyer, Edmund (Dan) Lyons, Esquire, the State requested the trial court's permission to ask whether Lyons had warned Gerry that he could be required to take a polygraph test if he cooperated with federal investigators. [24] The defense strongly objected. In overruling the objection, the trial court permitted the State to ask the question in a context which is modified to suggest the possibility of the test as opposed to the absolute fact that a test is going to be given. [25] The testimony by Lyons on this point proceeded as follows: Q. Now, he had told you up to this point about going out on his boat with his brother Thomas and dumping a body, is that correct? A. Yes, sir. Q. He had not told you at this point about his brother Thomas asking him if he could go out and use the boat if he had to dispose of a body prior to June 28th, is that also correct? A. That's true. He had not told me that. Q. Now, when you met with him on October 30th of 1997, did you have information to the effect that Thomas had told him that or asked him that prior to June 28th of 1996? A. Yes. Q. What did you tell  specifically with respect to meeting with the federal authorities, what did you tell Gerry about whether he could or could not withhold information from the federal authorities if he made a decision to go in? A. I told him what I would tell any other client in that situation. If you make a decision to go in, you have to go in and make full disclosure. You can't hold anything back. If you do or if you have not told me every little detail and something comes out in the course of meeting with federal prosecutors, it will come back and bite you on the rear end, and it's just crucial, and I said this to Gerry, I need to know everything before we go in because if you hold anything back, you're going to hurt yourself. Q. Did you also tell him prior to going in  did you also tell him at that meeting that he would or might be required to take a polygraph test? A. Yes. [26] The trial judge then immediately instructed the jury that this testimony was admissible for only a limited purpose, namely: solely for the purpose of permitting you to consider its impact on the state of mind of Gerard Capano at the time he made the ensuing statement. His state of mind at that time has been placed in issue and is in issue, and you are to consider the question and answer just presented solely for that purpose. There is no evidence that such a test was administered, and you should not speculate on that since the results would not be admitted into evidence.... [27] Putting aside for the moment the issue of potential prejudice engendered by a reference to a lie detector test, we believe that the trial judge's limiting instruction was consistent with a rational theory  namely that it was arguably preferable, on balance, for the jury to hear, with appropriate caution, an explanation of why, at that particular moment, Gerry elected to stop lying and to tell the truth. Permitting this testimony with a limiting instruction may have been considered by the trial judge to be preferable to a course of action that would leave the jury to speculate on a wide range of scenarios for Gerry's apparent epiphany, with the risk that some of the speculative scenarios could have been irrelevant and false. The State emphasized the impact of Lyons' testimony three times during closing arguments, observing that Gerry did not disclose the conversation about using his boat to dispose of a body until after he was threatened with a lie detector test. [28] A key reference to this testimony in the State's summation is as follows: But he [Gerry] told his story, his testimony, to Dan Lyons as early as April 1997, months before his house was raided. And the only piece of the puzzle he left out had to do with the defendant's request that if he killed somebody could he use the boat. That's the only piece missing. And we get that piece when on October 30th Dan Lyons, knowing that Gerry is about to come in and discuss his case with the Government, tells [Gerry] you must tell the complete truth. He threatens him with the possibility of taking a lie detector test and he says you have to tell the complete truth, you cannot hold back. I want to read you something from Dan Lyons' testimony. Remember, Dan Lyons was Gerry's lawyer and he was asked by Mr. Wharton: What did you tell  specifically with respect to meeting with the federal authorities, what did you tell Gerry about whether he could or could not withhold information from the federal authorities if he made a decision to go in? And Mr. Lyons responded: I told him what I would tell any other client in that situation. If you make a decision to go in, you have to go in and make full disclosure. You can't hold anything back. If you do or if you have not told me every little detail and something comes out in the course of meeting with federal prosecutors, it will come back and bite you on the rear end, and it's just crucial, and I said this to Gerry, I need to know everything before we go in because if you hold anything back, you're going to hurt yourself. Question: Did you also tell him prior to going in  did you also tell him at that meeting that he would or might be required to take a polygraph test? Answer: Yes. Having advised him of that, what did he do then? Then Mr. Lyons said this  he said: Well, I said a little bit more. I said look, you have told me everything that happened, but it is possible, and I just don't know, but it is possible that there may have been a situation in which Tom said to you I'm thinking about killing somebody or just raised the issue before June of 1996 and if you are holding that back because you just don't want to tell me or it is painful to tell me, or you want to protect your brother you are making a big mistake, because if it happened you are going to hurt yourself. [29] Capano contends that the trial court committed reversible error by permitting the State to refer to Gerry's lie detector test during its direct examination of Lyons. The State argues that Lyons' testimony was admissible for the limited purpose of showing Gerry's state of mind in that he agreed to disclose incriminating evidence against his brother only after his lawyer warned him that he would have to take a lie detector test as a condition of his plea agreement. Under this theory, the State did not seek to prove that Gerry had taken and passed the lie detector test; instead the State sought to prove only a triggering event  that Gerry's decision to disclose the second extortionist conversation was triggered by the threat of a lie detector test. The State also asserts that a reference to a lie detector test raises a concern only where the reference directly or impliedly discloses the results of the polygraph. Clearly, the results of a polygraph are inadmissible. Courts acknowledge, however, that the only logical conclusion [the jurors] could deduce would be that [the witness] passed the polygraph test thus enabling him to complete his plea bargain with the State. [30] Lyons' testimony raises two related issues: (1) whether a reference to the threat of a lie detector test may be admissible evidence and (2) whether Lyons improperly vouched for the credibility of Gerry's testimony by testifying in his capacity as an attorney and an officer of the court that he had warned Gerry about the possibility of a lie detector test.
As a general rule, and as the trial court instructed here, the results of polygraph tests are inadmissible for any purpose because their scientific reliability has not been established. [31] Similarly, polygraph evidence is never admissible if it is offered to establish that a witness' version of the events is true. These rules reflect a legitimate concern that jurors will assume that the results of the polygraph are accurate and will therefore accept the witness' testimony as the truth. Put differently, the concern is that a potentially unreliable lie detector test will take the place of the jury in assessing the credibility of witnesses. [32] The State nevertheless contends that evidence of the threat of a polygraph test is admissible, even if the results of the polygraph test are not admissible. Curiously, neither party in all the voluminous briefs [33] filed in the case before us cites Whalen v. State, [34] where we held, in the unique circumstances of that case, that a polygraph test may be admissible as a relevant fact in assessing the voluntariness of a defendant's confession. The Whalen Court reached this conclusion because the presentation to the trier of fact of all relevant facts and circumstances is appropriate when it must assess the totality of the circumstances surrounding the defendant's confession. [35] The holding in Whalen preserves the rule prohibiting the use of the results of a polygraph test without prior agreement of the parties. [36] We believe that any reference to a polygraph test is potentially mischievous. In fact, we cannot now foresee scenarios in which the potential for prejudice would not exist. At the very least, the trial court must apply enhanced scrutiny (in addition to a Rule 403 analysis) to assure that any references to a polygraph are necessary, of minimal prejudicial impact and that no other appropriate alternative evidence is available to establish the relevant operative fact sought to be admitted. The trial court must also formulate a clear cautionary instruction for the jury. [37] Whalen may not be read broadly to permit references to a lie detector test to prove a limitless range of operative facts, and it must be limited to the circumstances that were present in the Whalen case itself. [38] Accordingly, we do not pronounce today a per se exclusionary rule prohibiting any reference to a lie detector test, but we caution that one cannot rely on a broad reading of Whalen. The State characterizes the threat of a polygraph test as an event like any other event that could cause a witness to change his or her testimony in one direction or the other. [39] But a lie detector test is fundamentally different from other events because its purpose as an investigative tool is to gauge whether a person is telling the truth. [40] In the present case, the jury may have inferred from Lyons' testimony: (1) that Gerry was not telling the truth before the threat of a lie detector test and (2) that he was telling the truth after the threat. [41] The admission of Lyons' testimony relating to a threat of a polygraph test in this situation was improper because it runs the risk that a reasonable juror could infer that the witness was lying before the threat of a test but telling the truth afterward. Given the judicial suspicion of lie detector tests and the potentially prejudicial nature of the lie detector testimony described above, the threshold question is whether the trial court abused its discretion in permitting the State to elicit testimony that Gerry disclosed information in response to the threat of a lie detector test [42] even for the limited purpose for which the testimony was admitted and within the context of the trial court's limiting instructions. Under the circumstances of this case, however, we find that the trial court's admission of Lyons' reference to a lie detector test does not require a reversal of Capano's conviction. We believe there is no basis to conclude that the jury would ignore the cautionary instruction given in this case. As discussed in subsection C of this Section, we conclude that any error in allowing this testimony is harmless when viewed through the prism of the totality of the record and in light of the trial judge's limiting instruction.
Capano also contends that Lyons' testimony taken as a whole improperly vouches for Gerry's credibility. This issue involves two related questions: (1) whether Lyons' testimony improperly attested to Gerry's credibility and (2) whether the State used Lyons' credentials as an experienced lawyer and former federal prosecutor to bolster Gerry's testimony. At the outset, we note that the trial court admitted Lyons' testimony based on its impact upon the state of mind of Gerard Capano at the time he made the ensuing statement [about Tom's request to use his boat]. [43] Nevertheless, it is clear that the State presented the testimony to explain why Gerry did not disclose this information until after he began to negotiate an arrangement with prosecutors. [44] Thus, the credibility of Gerry's testimony was at issue, not his state of mind at the time of his final disclosure. As a general rule, a witness may not bolster or vouch for the credibility of another witness by testifying that the other witness is telling the truth. [45] The State argues that the trial court did not err in this respect because Lyons did not vouch for Gerry and did not express an opinion on the veracity of Gerry's testimony. But the cases are clear that improper vouching includes testimony that directly or indirectly provides an opinion on the veracity of a particular witness. [46] In the present case, Lyons testified that he warned Gerry: (1) about the possibility of a lie detector test; (2) about Gerry's obligation to make full disclosure; and (3) not to hold anything back from the federal prosecutors. [47] In our view, these three points made by Lyons, when taken together, created a substantial risk that the jury would conclude that Lyons' admonitions to Gerry induced him to tell the truth to the federal prosecutors and hence to the jury. It is implicit in Lyons' testimony that Lyons believed his own admonitions to have been effective. Thus, this testimony is a subtle and indirect version of vouching for Gerry's credibility. The problem is compounded by the State's elicitation from Lyons of his credentials as an experienced lawyer and former federal prosecutor. This testimony highlights the potential that Lyons' status as an experienced lawyer may have imparted credibility to Gerry's testimony  owing not to Gerry's believability but to the credentials of the lawyer-witness vouching for him. [48] Given Lyons' experience with federal prosecutors, a jury would be likely to infer that Gerry did not disregard Lyons' emphatic directive to make full disclosure. In Graves v. State [49] we reversed a conviction in part because the lawyer for two prosecution witnesses improperly vouched for them. Before the witnesses took the stand, the witnesses' lawyer appeared as a witness for the State and testified that he had urged the witnesses to cooperate with investigators and to tell the truth. [50] The lawyer also testified extensively about his impressive credentials and about specific honors that he received as a criminal defense lawyer. [51] In that situation, this Court was concerned that the lawyer's recital of his professional attainments and his standing in the legal community could serve but one purpose: that a lawyer of his standing would not represent clients who were not truthful. [52] In the present case, the State did not exalt Lyons' credentials in the same blatant manner as in Graves, but Lyons did testify that he worked as a federal prosecutor for eight years and had been in private practice since 1982. [53] He also testified extensively about his dealings with federal prosecutors on Gerry's behalf. This was a subtle but clearly effective method of permitting Lyons to vouch for Gerry's truthfulness in his disclosures to federal prosecutors. There is thus a concern that the jury may have inferred that a lawyer of Lyons' experience may have believed that Gerry's testimony was credible. Although it was error to permit Lyons to testify in a manner that amounted to vouching, compounded by using Lyons' credentials to bolster Gerry's credibility, the admission of Lyons' testimony was harmless in view of the entirety of the evidence.