Polygraph Investigation Technique (lie Detector), a Legal Fiction from the Probative Force Point of View, Possibilities and Limits

• Author: Tudorel B. Butoi - Corina Florenta Popescu
• Position: Professor doctor, forensic psychologist (ex. Police colonel - Head of the psychological laboratory detection simulated behavior - Criminal Investigation - Capital Police). - Conf. Univ. PhD, Ecological University of Bucharest, Romania, e-mail: coripopescu@yahoo.com.
• Pages: 150-156

LESIJ NO. XXVI, VOL. 2/2019

POLYGRAPH INVESTIGATIO N TECHNIQUE (LIE DETECTOR), A LEGAL

FICTION FROM THE PROBATIVE FORCE POINT OF VIEW- POSSIBILITIES

AND LIMITS -

Tudorel B. BUTOI*

Corina Florena POPESCU**

Abstract

Although generally the results of the polygraph test are not admitted to the courts unless a

convention is reached and the lawyer's consent is obtained, the test can be very useful for investigators

during the investigation of the crime. In Romania, the first study on the opportunity and efficiency of

polygraph insertion into police activity was made in 1976. This was done for a year, using the classic

methods of police work with the polygraph method in parallel.

Keywords: polygraph technique, polygraph diagrams, psychophysiological changes, informed

consent.

1. Introduction

With over 25 years of use in Romanian

forensics and over 54 years of consecration

in the world, USA1, Japan2, Israel, Serbia,

Croatia, Canada, etc., the polygraph

technique is reasonably disputed even today.

Permanently, as well as the specialists

in the field, between appreciation and

contestation, the sinuous road of simulated

behaviours investigation was littered with

both smashing failures and remarkable

successes.

We will not insist on them, the last 25

years of professional practice in the field,

done by psychologists and prosecutor

authors, with good and bad, assimilated to

the lessons we have learned from them and

on which we still reflect.

* Professor doctor, forensic psychologist (ex. Police colonel - Head of the psychological laboratory detection

simulated behavior - Criminal Investigation - Capital Police).

** Conf. Univ. PhD, Ecological University of Buch arest, Romania, e-mail: coripopescu@yahoo.com.

1 See John Reid, Fred Inban, Lye Detection and Criminal Investigation, 1942, Baltimore, USA.

2 See Tanemoto Furuhata, Le detector de mensonges (polygraph) au service de la police japonaise, Revue

Internationale de police criminalle, mars, Paris, 1966, pg. 62.

Asked by courts, prosecutions,

defences to speak out about the specialist

opinions of some distinguished specialists in

the field, we are facing challenges that we

are called to detail hereinafter:

Arguments of the current vulnerability

of the polygraph technique

a) The polygraph technique has been

extensively / exponentially

popularized in the sense of satisfying

the freedom of information of the

general public, exposing in details a

series of intimacies - thus losing its

“infallibility” and mystery / surprise

aura, psychologically necessary to the

pre- test phase of waiting, charging,

emotional mounting on the issue

“criticizes the memory of the criminal

act” absent / present in t he cognitive /

emotional memorial matrix of the