Cops Use Polygraph Less Often

Friday, November 29, 2013 Cops use polygraph less often Examiners now questioning job hopefuls, fewer crime suspects BY DUAA ELDEIB After decades of relying on controversial polygraph examinations to help solve crimes, the Chicago Police Department has drastically scaled back on giving so-called lie-detector tests in the course of criminal investigations. In what appears to be a shift in focus, the department’s polygraph unit examiners, who previously worked under the forensic services division, have been relocated to human resources, where their primary responsibility is administering the tests to police officer candidates. The examiners’ new unit follows industry standards for conducting polygraphs. The move was said to be temporary, but one year later, the examiners are still with the personnel unit. “The temporary detail was made to address the backlog in pre-employment screenings needs,” police spokesman Adam Collins said. “There hasn’t been a move away from polygraphs as a part of criminal investigations.” Collins did not say how long the three Center on Wrongful Convictions client Nicole examiners would remain with human Harris, to whom a polygraph examiner lied, resources, which has seen a significant saying she’d failed the test. increase in the number of pre-employment polygraphs. He said only that it would be Yet the number of criminal polygraphs has “until the need has been met.” The examiners dropped considerably, from about 400 in continue to conduct criminal polygraphs as 2011 to 50 in the first eight months of 2013. the need arises, Collins said. The timing of the examiners’ move to the personnel unit corresponded with a Tribune investigation into the polygraph unit’s role in obtaining false confessions. 1 Critics decried the department’s use of the examiners comply with professional polygraphs, claiming the examiners standards, according to police records and employed it as an interrogation prop to officials. extract confessions. Some detractors also Steven Drizin, a law professor at questioned the validity of the polygraph Northwestern University, was part of the itself, calling it junk science. Polygraphs team from the university’s Center on have played a role in several Chicago murder Wrongful Convictions that represented prosecutions that unraveled. Harris in her appeal. At the time of the Tribune’s investigation, Drizin said he believes the department’s published in March, police extolled the decision to shift the focus of the examiners polygraph as a valuable investigative tool in “is an admission that their presence in criminal cases. criminal cases, especially homicide cases, is But the Tribune found that Chicago police a liability to the prosecution.” did not adhere to voluntary published “There are legions of false confessions that standards for how polygraphs are came about as a result of the introduction of administered or scored. For example, major false polygraph results,” he added. industry groups strongly encourage The defendants who were later cleared numerical scoring of polygraph exams, but it said they had believed the polygraph was a wasn’t until 2012 that Chicago police said scientific test that would confirm their their examiners had recently begun innocence. They said police told them a employing the practice. Before that, one polygraph could prove if they were telling examiner agreed in a sworn deposition that the truth. Instead, they alleged that the he scored a test simply by “eyeballing it.” polygraph examiners manipulated them into The Tribune also found that the city has falsely confessing and in one case made up a paid out millions of dollars in damages in confession. polygraph-related cases. The Tribune Collins said the department has not examined the role of the polygraph unit in changed its philosophy regarding criminal the cases of six defendants who went on to polygraphs. The decision to move the be cleared -- five of whom were charged with examiners to the personnel unit was made in murder. October 2012, and the examiners began in One of them was Chicago mother Nicole the personnel unit the following month, he Harris, who had been convicted in 2005 of said. At the time the Tribune’s investigation murdering her 4-year-old son. A federal was published months later, department appeals court overturned her conviction, and officials denied the unit’s focus had shifted. her case was dismissed in June after the Now, when a request for a criminal Cook County state’s attorney’s office polygraph comes through, arrangements are completed a comprehensive reinvestigation. made to allow the examiners to assist the Harris claimed she falsely confessed to detectives, department officials said. Chicago police examiner Robert Bartik only In 2011, Chicago police conducted 402 after he berated her and told her she had criminal polygraphs. In 2012, that number failed the polygraph exam, though police dropped to 169, according to records records show the test was inconclusive. obtained through a Freedom of Information Bartik, who in court records denied those Act request. claims, declined to comment. Examiners from the Cook County sheriff’s In their role handling pre-employment office, who have been called in on occasion polygraphs, the examiners now report to a to assist with criminal polygraphs, have supervisor who is a licensed polygraph conducted seven exams for Chicago police examiner, and written procedures dictate that 2 since 2012, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s of the six cases, an “excellent examiner.” office said. Bartik previously testified that 111 people “An increase or decrease is merely a confessed to him in a five-year period, reflection of the number of requests that prompting a defense expert to call his record came in” and not a change in strategy, “unprecedented.” In court records, Bartik has Collins said. denied any wrongdoing. The commander who oversees forensics has called Bartik, who was involved in five 3 .

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