Further Readings
Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000).
Gibson, J., Calderia, G., & Spence, L. K. (2003). Measuring
attitudes toward the United States Supreme Court.
American Journal of Political Science, 47(2), 354–367.
Heuer, L. (2005). What’s just about the criminal justice
system? A psychological perspective. Journal of Law and
Policy, 13(1), 209–228.
Hibbing, J. R., & Theiss-Morse, E. (2001). Process
preferences and American politics: What the people want
government to be. American Political Science Review,
95 (1), 145–153.
MacCoun, R. (2005). Voice, control and belonging: The
double-edged sword of procedural fairness. Annual
Review of Law and Psychology, 1,171–201.
Tyler, T. (1990). Why people obey the law. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press.
Tyler, T. (2001). Public trust and confidence in legal
authorities: What do majority and minority group
members want for the law and legal institutions?
Behavioral Science & Law, 19(2), 215–235.PUBLICOPINIONABOUT
THEPOLYGRAPH
The public is routinely informed that suspects have
been administered a polygraph test and have either
failed or passed the test. In some cases, this informa-
tion is provided during the trial. Consequently, how
the public judges the polygraph test is of interest to
those in the legal community. A number of studies
have addressed how the public responds to polygraph
tests, and these studies generally suggest that people
react to polygraph test results much differently than
the courts assume they do.
As used in criminal investigations, the polygraph
test consists of a series of questions administered to a
suspect by a polygraph examiner, who measures the
suspect’s physiological responses to each of the ques-
tions. In most instances, the pattern of questioning of
suspects involves a variant of the Control Question
Test (CQT), in which suspects are asked both relevant
questions and control questions. A pattern of higher
physiological responses to the relevant questions
results in a failed test.
The courts have been largely unwilling to admit poly-
graph test evidence into trials. Much of this reluctancestems from the concern that the polygraph test cannot
reliably determine when someone is truthful or decep-
tive. This concern was first articulated in 1923 in Frye
v. United States, in which it was ruled that the lie
detector had not gained general acceptance in the sci-
entific community. Today, courts routinely cite the
1993 case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuti-
cals, which did not concern the polygraph specifically
but rather any scientific evidence. More important to
the present discussion, a second concern surrounding
the polygraph test is that the public may see the test as
infallible and place unwarranted trust in the results.
Because the polygraph test gets directly to the heart of
the matter—whether the suspect is truthful or decep-
tive in denying the crime, there is the fear that jurors
will simply disregard all other evidence and place their
trust entirely in the results of the polygraph test. This
belief on the part of the court was articulated in the
1975 case of United States v. Alexander.
Polygraph test results typically are entered into
trial evidence either as a result of prior stipulation
(i.e., prior agreement between the parties) or as a
result of a separate hearing. Presently, approximately
one third of the states allow polygraph tests into evi-
dence under prior stipulation. Stipulated tests arise in
instances where the prosecutor asks a defendant to
submit to a polygraph test and agrees to drop the
charges if the test is passed but will introduce the test
results into evidence if the test is failed. In instances
where the defense wants to admit the results of
a passed test over the objection of the prosecution, a
hearing typically called a Kelly-Fryeor a Daubert
hearing is conducted to determine the admissibility of
the polygraph evidence.
Several studies have investigated whether jurors
are likely to place unwarranted trust in polygraph test
results. Here, the findings have been consistent in
showing that the public remains rather skeptical about
the validity of polygraph tests. These findings have
come about from jury simulation studies, in which the
participants are given information about a criminal
trial and asked to render judgments. The cases in these
studies have varied the crime in question from bur-
glary to rape to murder. The manner in which the trial
information was presented to participants has varied
from videotaped trial simulations, audiotaped infor-
mation, and lengthy trial transcripts, to brief sum-
maries of trial facts. Moreover, the characteristics of
participants have also varied, from college undergrad-
uates to samples of community members.664 ———Public Opinion About the PolygraphP-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:43 PM Page 664