A new report shows that the day after killing Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman passed a police lie detector test. He registered truthful in stating that he was afraid for his life before shooting the teen. The report does not materially affect the trial since such tests are not admissible but may explain the the resistance of local officials to bring the case. It also further supports the view, again, that Angela Corey overcharged the case. She was no doubt aware of the test which, while not admissible as evidence because their reliability is questioned, can be considered by the prosecutors in determining the appropriate charge. UPDATE: A police report shows a critical view of Zimmerman’s account and says that he missed two opportunities to defuse the situation.
Zimmerman willingly submitted to a computer voice stress analyzer (CVSA) “truth verification” on February 27 and the test “was classified as No Deception Indicated (NDI).” This included the question of “Did you confront the guy you shot?’ He answered, “No.” He was rated as telling the truth in both saying that he did not confront Martin and that he was in fear of his life.
Also released recently are further details from Zimmerman to the police. Zimmerman insisted that the teen knocked him down and began to pound his head in the sidewalk while telling him “You’re going to die.” Zimmerman claims Trayvon reached for the gun and that he grabbed it to protect himself.
Both the question of fear and the party responsible for the confrontation could be distorted by Zimmerman’s perspective and not accepted objectively by third parties. Of the two questions, however, the confrontation question is the most interesting. It is rare for targeted suspects to agree to lie detectors, though I have agreed to such tests in past cases.
Once again, this evidence does not rule out the basis for a criminal charge, but in my view strongly militates against a charge greater than manslaughter. In fairness to the local officials, the evidence also offers support for their view that no charge was appropriate. One can disagree with that conclusion, but they may have had solid reasons for opposing a charge. That does not excuse sloppy police work and there was still a basis to detain Zimmerman at the scene. However, the case has become more muddled with such new evidence. As a criminal defense attorney, I have always viewed this case as one with strong defense arguments for trial. While the odds always favor the prosecution, the factual record has a number of elements that could create reasonable doubt. Obviously, the trial itself can present facts in different light and the prosecution has yet to be fully heard in the case.
Source: NY Daily News
The entire time that the test examiner was in the room was one hour. The first half hour he set up the computer, explained to GZ how it work, had GZ read and sign a paper, had GZ give a narration of what happened the night before. They took a 4-5 minute break.
When they returned the examiner reviewed the 9 questions that he would ask GZ and the answers he would give for the control questions. These were rehearsed. About 2 minutes to calibrate the machine including recording GZ “yes” and “no”
It took about a minute and a half to go thru them all.
1. Is your name George? A: yes
2. Is your name George? A: yes
3. Is the color of the wall green? A: no [rehearsed lie]
4. Is today Monday? A: yes [true]
5. Did you confront the guy you shot? A: no
6. Is this the month Feb? A: yes [true]
7. Were in fear for your A: yes …… [GZ jumped in before end of question]
8. Were in fear for your life when you shot the guy? A: yes
9. Are we in the city of Sanford? A: yes [true]
10. Have you ever driven over the posted speed limit? A: no [rehearsed lie]
11. Did you ever drive over the posted speed limit? A: no [rehearsed lie]
12. Am I wearing a watch? A: no [rehearsed lie]
13. Am I wearing a watch? A: no [rehearsed lie]
Above is a practice. Let’s do it again. Review of the control questions.
1 min 10 seconds to go thru them again.
1. Is your name George A: yes
2. Is your name George A: yes
3. Is the color of the wall green A: no [rehearsed lie]
4. Is today Monday? A: yes [true]
5. Did you confront the guy you shot? A: no
6. Is this the month Feb? A: yes [true]
7. Is this the month Feb? A: yes [true]
8. Were in fear for your life when you shot the guy? A: yes
9. Are we in the city of Sanford? A: yes [true]
10. Have you ever driven over the posted speed limit? A: no [rehearsed lie]
11. Am I wearing a watch? A: no [rehearsed lie]
I have to wonder about the validity of a rehearsed lie actually showing a lie on a machine. After all, he is saying exactly what he was told to say.
Manny O,
It does not matter one whit whether he passed or failed on the machine which is erroneously called a “lie detector.” If you want to get really technical, there is no such thing as a lie detector, or for that matter, a truth detector. There are machines that measure stress and tension in people and do it quite accurately. Some people show stress when lying, and in those cases we say the lie detector worked. Others may or may not show stress. That is exactly why the results of such “tests” are not admissible in court.
When scientists and lawyer talk about tests and evidence there is often missed communication. When a scientist refers to something being “reliable” and “valid” those words have quite different meaning than that found in a law dictionary and the rules of evidence. A test is said to be reliable if it is repeatable. In other words, the test can be given repeatedly and the results of repeated testing will fall within the Standard Error of Measurement (SEM). In everyday life, you see the SEM in political polls and the like when the results say something like, “Accurate within 4.2%.” Validity means that a test measures what it purports to measure. A test of calories burned would not be expected to measure IQ. If we set out to measure some specific parameter, the test would have to actually measure what we think it measures. There are ways of determining that.
There are two kinds of errors in testing. Type I and Type II. One is a false positive and the other a false negative. “Lie detectors” make both kinds of errors on a regular basis. Again, this is why they are not admissible into evidence.
A kindly word of advice. If anyone in authority asks you to take a lie detector test, very politely decline on the basis that the technique is scientifically unsound, invalid and unreliable.
From Zimmerman’s own web-page dating back to 2005:
The Miami Herald reported that Mr. Zimmerman’s lawyer, Mark O’Mara, has confirmed that the abandoned 2005 account belonged to his client. On the MySpace page, Mr. Zimmerman calls himself “Joe G.” and is pictured holding a small child. He writes about leaving Manassas, Va., with mixed emotions. He also refers to his two previous arrests, describes his former girlfriend as his “ex-ho” and makes an obscure reference about two friends who went to jail for a year and did not mention his apparent involvement in an unspecified crime, even though they could have had him “pinched.”
In the section, where he writes about leaving Manassas, he says that he missed his old friends because “no one is going to have your back like your boys who grew up with you and are as scared of your mommas as you are. You know who you are, the same ones that would come ova and have my pops tie your tie before every school dance and interview.”
Then, in a riff about why he does not miss his hometown, outside Washington, he makes remarks about Mexicans, using slang as he seemingly discussed recent immigrants.
“I dont miss driving around scared to hit mexicans walkin on the side of the street, soft ass wanna be thugs messin with peoples cars when they aint around (what are you provin, that you can dent a car when no ones watchin) dont make you a man in my book. Workin 96 hours to get a decent pay check, gettin knifes pulled on you by every mexican you run into!”
So, George didn’t want to have to “drive around scared to hit Mexicans walkin on the side of the street, soft ass wanna be thugs…”
George didn’t want to have to be scared to hurt people he thought of as thugs.
After all, why SHOULD he be scared to hurt thugs? He’s a “good guy” — he should be ALLOWED to hurt thugs!
Now if he was questioned about THIS stuff while he was hooked up to a polygraph, after a drug screen, well, then…
A good friend of mine, a very successful prosecutor, used lie detectors all the time but paid no attention to the results on the machine. He had this really great investigator who would “observe” the subject whilst he/she was taking the test. It was upon the investigator’s opinion that my friend relied. His conviction rate was outstanding and quite a few suspects were dismissed after taking the test. His investigator was a human lie-detector.
Manny O, had Zimmerman even TAKEN a “lie detector test,” there would be a different debate going on right now. What he took was a voice stress test. It does not test the same things a polygraph tests; it tests voice STRESS. The fact that Zimmerman would not feel stress when he gives HIS story is pretty clear; if he pleads out, and he has to ELOCUTE, you will detect stress in his voice as he tells the REAL STORY.
Of course, that doesn’t matter.
The voice stress test was done BY the police and FOR the police so the police could do what they wanted to do. It is not admissible because there has not been the requisite proof shown that it is reliable. It is lower, on the credibility scale, than the polygraph, and even the polygraph is not admissible.
All these tests show is how the PERP feels about what the PERP says he or she DID. If I do something that is against the law and constitutes a felony, and if I do not admit it for the very reason that if I admit it, I believe the law will unjustly punish me for something for which it should really REWARD me, I will feel absolutely ENTITLED to lie about it — as George felt entitled to direct his wife to lie about the money they hid — and then I will not feel stressed when I DO lie about it.
Now, if Goerge Zimmerman were to take a battery of forensic tests, including the MMPI, PAI, VIP, SIRS, and projective tests, and THEN do a voice stress test and a polygraph, and if all of it were to be interpreted together, although that still wouldn’t PROVE that he lied or PROVE that he told the truth, it would come a lot closer to providing some real evidence of some real value.
Until then, we can pretty much believe that he was telling the truth at the following times:
1. When he told the dispatcher that he was following Trayvon Martin;
2. When he cursed at Trayvon Martin, calling him a derogatory name;
3. When he protested that the a55holes always got away;
4. When he chose not to have the cops meet him at his vehicle, but instead, directed them to call him when they arrived in the community so he could tell them where he was THEN.
He had no motive, at that time, to lie. And those statements, from George Z himself, lead to:
Intent (followed “the suspect” when he was armed with a loaded gun)
malice (called him an a55hole and cursed him)
Choice not to follow police instructions (failing to stop following “the suspect”)
Now a real voice stress test should have asked him these questions:
“Is it true that you followed Trayvon Martin?”
“Were you upset that the a55holes always get away?”
“Were you convinced that Trayvon Martin was a criminal and that it was OK for you to tail him and catch him?”
“Did you stop following Trayvon Martin and tell the police to meet you at your vehicle, when told to stand down?”
“Do you think you had a right to kill Trayvon Martin?”
You might find some stress, then. And all these questions were really quite natural considering his conversation with the dispatcher.
Oro Lee
1, June 26, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Definition: Thuggery – what happens to a young, black man who stands his ground
pete
1, June 26, 2012 at 7:57 pm
Oro Lee
while wearing a hoodie
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and talking on the phone
here is something ironic
If the headline was “Zimmerman fails lie detector test!!”. Most of the commentators would be saying (paraphrasing) SEE SEE! He is a filthy rotten LIAR… send him to the gallows!
But when it says the opposite, “Zimmerman passed lie detector test!” it’s nothing but a bonanza of why lie detection test are total BS, anecdotes about fringe failures of lie detection tests or SEE SEE! Zimmerman is SOoooo EVIL that he doesn’t even KNOW when he is lying! Send him to the gallows!
So it doesnt matter what the headline says…the conclusion is the same in those whose minds are already made up and they are just looking for any data that supports their forgone conclusion and contrary data is just water off a ducks back
LottaKatz, in the 15 minutes before Zimmerman’s test started, he volunteered the information that he had forgotten that he had a loaded gun on him until the actual time when he reached for his gun and shot Martin.
Hmmmmm….
Funny polygraph story (about real polygraphs). In about 1989 I was asked by some radio show host to debate Eric Foretich, accused of molesting his daughter(s), on radio. It was to be an hour-long show. I didn’t have much preparation to do. Foretich and I would each be at our own location and the radio host would have the producer call each of us and we’d do it like that. At five minutes before air time, I got a call from the producer who said that Foretich had just bowed out and refused to do the show. I said, “OK is it canceled then?” She said no, we were going to do the “debate” anyway but just with me. I said, “Oh goody, I like to talk too much.” We laughed. She hooked up the call when it came time. It was a call-in show where people would call in and ask questions or argue, etc. So I answered the guy’s questions for a while and then someone called in and said, “I heard Foretich took a lie detector test and passed” or else (my memory is spotty at this point) “would it impress you [satisfy you, whatever] if Foretich took a lie detector test and passed?” of something like that. I said no, it wouldn’t impress me at all because first of all, any good sociopath can pass a polygraph with no problem, but I’d like to see Foretich volunteer to take a plethysmograph. So we talked about that for a minute and then back to polygraph. Another caller wanted to know why I thought a sociopath could pass a polygraph even if he lied, and I said it was because he would not feel guilt when he told a lie, so to him, the test wouldn’t be able to measure his anxiety when he lied. I explained it, I hope, better than I have here. I added, “besides there are other ways to fool a polygraph, and especially if there has not been any drug screen performed first.” Some callers wanted to talk about that. (Essentially, if you do certain things first and during the test, your responses will not be measurable — unless polygraph technology has gotten a lot better during the years between the Foretich case and now.) So we did.
Then there came a call from a guy who said he wanted to know: “Exactly what is it you do to fool the polygraph test?” I laughed and so did the talk show host. I answered, “Sorry, you’ll have to find that out for yourself.”
This little voice stress test, with “are the walls green?” and “Were you in fear for your life?” is not only inadmissible, it’s worthless. By the way, while George is chatting with the guy who administered the test, he volunteered the “fact” that he had forgotten that he was carrying a loaded gun — until Trayvon Martin reached for it.
Figure that.
He said that sentence without any stress in his voice!
Last part of my posting got cut off in my edit program:
He also went into great detail about the kind of situations and physical conditions that would lead to a subject being officially untestable, something that was also of interest to his customers. 🙂
Nal: “The study’s findings also noted, however, that the mere presence of a VSA program during an interrogation may deter a respondent from giving a false answer.”
and the follow-up by Dredd: “Which may indicate that it is not scientific, in that, if the subjects did not know about a “lie detector” being used they would be more inclined to be themselves … to lie hard or tell the truth hard.”
******
When I was in a business that required some level of certainty regarding the truth of a situation my business brought in a consultant to discuss lie detector tests and ‘truth serum’ use. This consultant was an ex LEO and now worked for a service that performed the tests in question so his take was hardly disinterested.
The consult had two takeaways: non-chemical lie detection tests were totally unreliable and, the great virtue of the tests occur in the 15 minutes they took with the test subject setting up the test. A significant percentage (around 20%) of test subjects would be so stressed out that they would confess to lying in their original statement or in performing the alleged act. It would be worth the cost for an iffy but crucial witness or alleged perp but only for the quarter hour before the test starts.
after a case i just worked on where the obviously, obviously guilty guy (the evidence was so overwhelming it was amazing and he was convicted) passed a polygraph with flying colors, i honestly couldn’t care less about whether anyone passes a polygraph
Oro Lee
while wearing a hoodie
Definition: Thuggery – what happens to a young, black man who stands his ground
Dredd informs me, “In Florida the jury must be charged with the lesser included offenses as a matter of Florida state law.”
Thank you, Dredd. I hate lesser includeds. I think they are a major reason why innocent folks plead out. The DA might get lucky with the higher charge. Or an unsure jury might split the baby. And the defense attorney is obligated to inform the client of both possibilities.
You people are pathetic, if he would have FAILED the test you’d all be demanding he be hung. Face it, Trayvon the Thug paid the price for his thuggery!
“Neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman missed two opportunities to try to peacefully approach Trayvon Martin before he fatally shot the unarmed teenager, according to an investigator’s report released Tuesday.
“The encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman, if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement, or conversely if he had identified himself to Martin as a concerned citizen and initiated dialog in an effort to dispel each party’s concern,” investigator Chris Serino wrote in an arrest warrant affidavit.
The affidavit was filed more than two weeks after the shooting when the Sanford Police Department was being criticized for not having arrested Zimmerman. Serino’s March 13 affidavit recommended Zimmerman be picked up for manslaughter, but a special prosecutor assigned to take over the case upped the charge to second-degree murder.
The documents released Tuesday are part of the public pre-trial records filed in the criminal case.
Zimmerman, 28, maintains he feared for his life and shot Martin in self-defense under Florida’s “stand your ground law.” He said he fired the fatal shot only after being ambushed and brutally attacked by the 17-year-old.”
(May I break in here to say, this is the most unbelievable part of Zimmermans story. I do not believe this happened AT ALL.)
The deadly encounter occurred in a gated Sanford, Fla., neighborhood where Zimmerman lived and Martin was staying with a family friend. Zimmerman called 911 to report Martin as a suspicious person walking through the area. He told the operator Martin was “up to no good” and “has his hand in his waist band.”
In the report released Tuesday, police say Zimmerman contradicted himself by saying that he was initially fearful of Martin but later got out of his vehicle and followed after the teen.
“His actions are inconsistent with those of a person who has stated he was in fear of another subject,” Serino wrote.
The Orlando Sentinel reported Tuesday afternoon that Serino, Sanford’s lead investigator on the case, has been granted a request to move from detective work to patrol duty.”
Yahoo News
Apparently lie detectors are better suited for drawing out observer bias than truth; since they tend to induce observers to confess what they want to see.
There’s probably a good reason lie detectors aren’t admissible as evidence in most courts. Which makes the whole point moot.
Oro Lee 1, June 26, 2012 at 5:00 pm
…
Unless there are no lesser includeds in the Zimmerman case, the DA may have overreached. Oh, we’re in Florida. maybe not.
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In Florida the jury must be charged with the lesser included offenses as a matter of Florida state law.