This is OT but I wasn't sure where else to put it. I think it would help understand more about how LDT's, how the analysts can effect the results, and how the questions can cause problems.
It is a discussion on JVM on May 19, 2010 the other night in another case regarding a difference of views by experts on the LDT results. I'm just copying the pertitent parts of the transcript regarding the LDT results only.
******Video Clip
DR. PHIL MCGRAW, TV HOST:
Two relevant questions, are you responsible for Julie`s disappearance? And did you cause Julie`s disappearance during the month of March?
He answered no to both of those, and it came back that that was deceptive.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What did you do?
GEORGE DE LA CRUZ, JULIE ANN GONZALEZ`S HUSBAND:
I didn`t do nothing. I didn`t do anything. I just felt that I should have stopped her.
MCGRAW:
Jack feels that he knew what the question was about and that he`s not telling the truth here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please tell the truth.
DE LA CRUZ:
I did tell the truth. I don`t know nothing.
************
VELEZ-MITCHELL: More questions than answers tonight about this case. Are police any closer to finding Julie?
I want to welcome my fantastic panel. Criminal profiler Pat Brown, again author of the new book "The Profiler". You`ve got to check it out. Jack Trimarco, polygraph examiner with us tonight. He is the gentleman who administered the test to George de la Cruz. We`re delighted to have you sir.
************
VELEZ-MITCHELL: George`s attorney told us, quote, "Obviously polygraphs are not admissible in court because they are not reliable. My client has complied from the beginning. He had nothing to do with the disappearance of his wife."
Jack, you`re the man who administered the polygraph. It is possible that lingering guilt over his broken marriage, guilt over allowing Julie to walk out that day, that those feelings could have caused George to fail on these two questions: "Are you responsible for her disappearance? And did you cause her disappearance?"
JAMES TRIMARCO, POLYGRAPH EXAMINER: No, the short answer to that, Jane, is no.
The questions were formulated to get to the heart of the question, and that is responsibility. The term responsibility and disappearance were both explained to him, which he said he understood explicitly.
And what he`s doing is he`s throwing me a bone. He wanted me to be happy with this bone that he felt some type of responsibility because he did not let her stay with him and that he should have protected her. Well, that`s not at all what was going on in that life.
That having been said, it was a wonderful two-hour polygraph test that came to the right conclusion despite what his defense attorney might say.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And what is the conclusion that you came to?
TRIMARCO: That he was deceptive to the relevant issue of having been responsible for Julie`s disappearance.
**************
....
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I have to ask you a question Pat Brown, criminal profiler. When George was on our show ISSUES and he sat there and the family was also on the show and he talked and talked, a lot of us said well, you know he doesn`t seemed guilty to us because he`s so talkative and he`s open about it and he`s showing up on our show and willing to answer questions.
What do you make of that?
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Well, he either thinks he`s in a big reality show and he`s very arrogant and thinks it`s funny and he`s going to get away with it because he obviously is a good person of interest or he really is innocent.
And I want to mention the polygraph here, I`m not happy with those two questions. I`m sorry. Those are the kind of questions I don`t think should be there. They are vague questions, he could be responsible in some way, he could have felt it caused in some way. Why didn`t they just ask the question, did you kill your wife? Did you dump her body?
SOTO: Exactly.
BROWN: You can`t blow those.
TRIMARCO: Well, let me respond to that.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right, Jack. Yes.
TRIMARCO:
Let me respond to that. Pat, I respect your abilities as a profiler, as I am also a retired profiler, but my duties in this case was as a polygraph examiner. So far be it from me to criticize your profiling skills.
My -- the reason we didn`t ask George if he killed his wife is, because we don`t know that she`s dead.
BROWN:
Yes, but if you asked him that he can either say yes or no and it`ll be a simple answer. If he didn`t have anything to do with her disappearance or death --
TRIMARCO:
We don`t know that she`s dead and so that`s --
BROWN:
It doesn`t matter.
TRIMARCO: --
an inappropriate issue.
It does -- it does matter. She`s disappearing, she`s disappeared. She`s not around. And so --
BROWN:
If he did something to her --
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Hold on, one at a time.
JAMES TRIMARCO, POLYGRAPH EXAMINER:
We don`t know if she`s alive or if she`s dead.
BROWN:
If he did something, she`s dead. That`s a simple reality. If he did something, she`s dead.
TRIMARCO:
You stick to profiling and I`ll stick to polygraph.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Ok. One at a time.
BROWN: Ok.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Ok. Listen, I want to get both of your sides of the story but the viewers have told us they can`t understand anybody when both people are talking at once.
All right. I think it`s a fascinating question and, you know, I have to wonder and give you something to think about for the other side of the break, let`s say some of the other big, famous suspects, would we ask them that question? On the other side.
**************
TRIMARCO:
Jane, I would. Before we started crossing professional lines there, I wanted to say that the first series of questions had to do with responsibility for her disappearance which were both disappearance and responsibility were defined to my satisfaction by George. He understood what those terms meant.
He failed the exam. He admitted that he had responsibility. He said it was out of guilt. He said he knew the polygraph worked, and at that point, Dr. Phil and I asked him if he would then take a second test with the question, did you kill Julie? And he said he wouldn`t take that test.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Well, let me just say a couple of things. One, he is not considered a suspect or even a person of interest. He has not been charged with anything and certainly he deserves the presumption of innocence.
*******
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m going to given you last word, Pat Brown. We do have to give him the presumption of innocence. 30 seconds.
BROWN: Well, he certainly does have issues obviously with his ex there. He should be a person of interest. No question about it. But I`m going to say, still, the polygraph was not adequate in my opinion to make a decision on. So no. That`s why it doesn`t go in court.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1005/19/ijvm.01.html
************
I found this discussion interesting because iof what the LDT analyst is saying and what George is saying, it is not hard to understand why George would fail the polygragh.
The LDT guy says several times that he explained to DeLaCruz what the LDT's analyst's definitions of disappearance and responsibility were and that DeLaCruz understood those definitions to the LDT's analysts satisfaction.
DeLaCruz says he did tell the truth but the LDT analysts says he answered deceptively.
My question is whose truth did DeLaCruz tell? Did DeLaCruz answer truthfully according to the LDT analyst's definitions? Just because DeLaCruz may have understood the LDT analyst's definitions of disappearance and responsibility, does make those defintions his truth, his belief. So do you answer truthfully according to what they tell you is the truth when you do not believe it to be true or do you answer according to your truth.
If DeLaCruz answered truthfully according to his truth, he would have made himself look guilty because it might have showed he was telling the truth. "Are you responsible for Julie's disappearance?" Yes - truth. No way this LDT analyst would let him explain. So either way DeLaCruz was in trouble by taking this LDT.
The LDT analyst told us that he would not have let DeLaCruz explain his answer to the question:
"And what he`s doing is he`s throwing me a bone. He wanted me to be happy with this bone that he felt some type of responsibility because he did not let her stay with him and that he should have protected her"
The LDT analyst discounted DeLaCruz's explanation because DeLaCruz's defintion of responsibility was not the LDT analysts. DeLaCruz did not believe what he was answering truthfully because he had a different definition of the terms so it showed deception.
**************
That has always been my question with Misty failing all those tests. Even if Misty did tell the truth, if she did not believe it was true, I would think it would show deception.
