A lie detector can be requested by both the victim and the suspect
A woman who is a suspect in criminal proceedings for arson requests a polygraph examination. As part of the criminal process, the woman has been given a security measure – she is not allowed to leave the city, and must report to the police every week. The suspect claims to the Latvian Television program “4. studio” that he received physical attacks and even death threats for a crime he did not commit.
“I have to wait for the moment when time will hit me. The expert who came to the house when the house was on fire explained that the person who did it must have burned his hands and himself must have been burned somewhere,” says the suspect, who hands do not have such signs.
In order to defend herself, the woman decided to undergo a polygraph examination, or the so-called lie detector, wrote a relevant application, but it was rejected.
Here the question arises, can a person who is suspected of a criminal offense request a polygraph examination for himself? Aldis Lasmanis, prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Riga Court District, explained that such a request can be made both by a person who has the right to defense and by the victim. The promoter of the process then evaluates the need for such expertise.
“If the satisfaction of this request will facilitate the criminal process, it will be significant, then the requested request for a polygraph examination can be satisfied and it can be carried out,” added Lasmanis.
Polygraph examination is used not only in civil but also in criminal proceedings. Especially if they are related to sexual crimes against minors. However, it requires the consent of the suspect, victim or witness.
“Most often, the situation in sex crimes is that persons who have the right to defend themselves exercise their rights and refuse to take a polygraph examination. Then we most often perform this examination on the victims, because sexual crimes against children have a rather high degree of latency,” explained the prosecutor.
Polygraph – the ultimate investigative activity
The State Police said that the services of a polygraph expert are used an average of 15 to 20 times a year, when it is necessary to strengthen previously obtained evidence in criminal proceedings.
“In police practice, the polygraph is used as the last investigative step to strengthen the already obtained evidence in moments when other investigative steps have not provided complete certainty about the existence or non-existence of the facts included in the subject of proof. Polygraph examinations are determined to check whether a person is not lying when asserting a fact.
The conclusions obtained as a result of the polygraph examination are not considered basic and main evidence,”
explained Gita Gžibovska, senior specialist of the Public Relations Department of the State Police.
However, the prosecutor’s office stated that in several criminal trials it was the polygraph examination that was very important in the analysis of the evidence base.
“One was a murder case where actually three people went to the location that we recorded and then only two came back from that location and they had chosen a defense position where they actually testified against each other, mentioning identical actions of the other person but denying “Then I used a polygraph examination, and in fact, in this polygraph examination, the expert evaluated the truthfulness of the answers to these questions, because only the court judges the truth,” said Lasmanis.
The only forensic expert: “A liar needs a good memory”
Latvia is the only country in the Baltic region where a certified forensic expert performs polygraph examinations.
“Really, quite often I get sent cases where there may not be enough other types of evidence,” said the only certified forensic examiner who conducts polygraph examinations.
Such, for example, are cases of sexual exploitation of minors. “For the most part, there were no witnesses to this, and the only evidence is the story of this child, who is probably quite young, and the story of the suspect, the accused. It happened, let’s say, at home, where there is not really anything for the police to look for at the scene and the evidence is quite little,” explained the expert.
He took the polygraph examination for the first time in 1998. “It was a criminal case. The State Police suggested that this expertise be carried out in a criminal case in which a young woman had been killed – blown up at a bus stop in order to obtain insurance compensation,” recalls the forensic expert.
The main thing is to ask precise questions, said a forensic expert with 25 years of experience. He is not interested in opinion, but in precise answers.
“Given my experience, I think it’s not that easy to get caught, because I did my research very carefully. I evaluated a lot of different research data, not only the so-called stress reactions of a person, which are recorded with a polygraph, but also what a person tells me how he tells it. A lot.
A liar needs a good memory – if a person tells something significantly different from what he has told a police investigator in the past, then I will definitely notice it.
I will pay attention to it. If a person himself may think that it is possible for him to lie, but if everything is carefully evaluated afterwards, then the lie can be revealed soon,” said the forensic expert.
The only operator of polygraph examination in Latvia indicated that the process could be made even more effective if the statements of the suspects – adults – were also recorded in video format in the State Police.
But in the case of the “4th studio” viewer, the expert added – if the prosecutor believes that a polygraph examination is also necessary to strengthen the evidence base, it will be conducted.
