Let me ask you. If your beloved spouse or parent or child went missing and you felt an electric but hollow horror and desperation to find them and LE told you that they’d like to do a polygraph to help rule you out so they can focus where they need to, would you truly say, “Yeah, no thanks. I’m not interested. They’re unreliable and I will be crucified.”?
As an attorney whose partner does criminal defense I’m aware of their limitations, unreliability and ability to incriminate someone. And yet, if it was MY loved one missing that I was desperate to find? I’d break my legs running as fast as I could do get there to do one.
Mark Klaas and John Walsh have repeated that as nauseam. When loved ones refuse it is a massive red flag.
Because it’s not about the law. It’s not about efficacy. Or risk. It’s about human behavior.
What is typical human behavior on the part of an innocent person in such a situation?
Obviously, veering from that doesn’t make a person guilty. (And as an aside, the converse isn’t true, because guilty people quite often agree to take polygraph tests, talk to LE without a lawyer, etc.) But it is a major red flag for law enforcement.
And for me.
