Court Opinion

ID: 9521842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:13:26.050831+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:01:17.956269
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Judge,
dissenting.
The State is correct in its contention that absent a waiver or stipulation between the parties, even the mention that a party or witness has taken a polygraph examination is not admissible. However, the reasons for this rule of evidence are that the test is not sufficiently accurate to permit its admission and there is fear the jury will give undue weight to the validity of a polygraph test. Hall v. State (1987), Ind., 514 N.E.2d 1265. In the circumstances of this case the reasons for operation of the rule are not present. Here, the main prosecution wit*1200ness was subjected to a three and one half hour interrogation. At first she was attached to a polygraph machine and gave statements which did not at all incriminate her or appellants. The interrogator repeatedly told her that she was being deceitful and untruthful, which caused her to cry uncontrollably. She was led to believe she was flunking the test and that the officers were attempting to “pin” the murder on her. After this type of serious emotional and mental pressure she implicated appellants in the murder of her husband. The polygraph was used as a tool of interrogation which brought about the change of story by the witness. Properly viewed, the polygraph was used as a means of coercion and not a means of verifying truth or falsity. These convictions rest in large measure upon the testimony of this witness, and the court’s refusal to permit defense questioning of her about the police use of the polygraph in questioning her and getting her to change her story, was an undue restriction upon the right to cross-examine her. For this reason alone, these convictions should be reversed.
A further ground for reversal of the conviction of Ross Wright exists. When defense counsel argued before the jury in opening statement that the aforementioned chief witness for the State had failed a polygraph test, no manifest necessity for declaring a mistrial was created. The admonition given at first by the trial judge when he denied the State’s mistrial motion was more than enough to cure any error. The later trial court order declaring a mistrial referred only to “harm which is potential” and does not satisfy the “manifest necessity” doctrine. This resulting repros-ecution of appellant Ross Wright was in contravention of the Constitutional protection against double jeopardy. Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497, 98 S.Ct. 824, 54 L.Ed.2d 717 (1978). I would order him discharged and appellant Stanley C. Wright retried.