Nathan J Gordon, William L Fleisher Read online

  who taught the authors the true meaning

  greatly appreciated.

  of love.

  The authors would be remiss if they did

  The authors wish to dedicate this book in

  not express their everlasting gratitude to

  memory of Lee G. Feathers, a member of the

  their loyal wives, Kathy Gordon and

  first graduating class of the Academy for

  Michelle Fleisher, and their families, who

  Scientific Investigative Training. Lee went

  have endured many lonely hours support-

  on to become one of the finest polygraph

  ing their careers.

  examiners and interrogators in the north-

  Over the years, the authors have had the

  eastern United States—thanks, Lee, for your

  distinct pleasure of meeting and training

  friendship and insight into interviewing

  some of the finest individuals from all over

  and interrogation.

  xiii

  Companion Web Site

  Ancillary materials are available online at:

  www.elsevier.com/companions/9780123819864

  xiv

  C H A P T E R

  1

  The Search for Truth

  The need to detect deception is hardly a twentieth-century phenomenon; humans have

  always needed to distinguish between the trustworthy and the untrustworthy. Agreed, to

  some small extent there is an inherent conflict in that both truth and deception have their

  places: they are necessary for individual and social survival. There are times when truth

  serves a socially destructive purpose or when small truths aren’t useful in a larger context.

  However, in the great majority of cases, deception is used to hide or disguise the truth to

  the detriment of society. The question is, how can we separate harmless lies from harmful

  ones and, more to the point, harmful lies from necessary truth? Those for whom the lies are

  useful work against solving the problem. They know that for the lie to do its job, it must not

  be detectable—or, at least, not detectable before escape or attack is possible.

  Ever since small familial groups of humans banded together for mutual social benefit, or

  for protection of person and property, humankind has been plagued by individuals whose

  practices deviate from the societal covenant. The activities of these individuals, if not

  checked, could and sometimes did destroy the societal group as a whole. Given that, the

  ability to detect lies to identify individuals who cannot be trusted has been vital to both

  physical and social survival. The search for a reliable means to identify the untrustworthy

  is as ancient as humankind. Some techniques were founded in superstition and/or the reli-

  gious belief that a moral god would in some way reveal the truth and disallow immorality.

  Many of these attempts, in fact, had some psychological or physiological basis; other meth-

  ods relied solely on fear of continued pain and torture.

  What is interesting about human behavior is that it has not changed since Biblical times.

  In fact, the very first clue to human behavior appeared in the Book of Genesis. It is the story

  of Eve influencing Adam to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. Having eaten it, Adam and

  Eve were imbued with knowledge and realized they were naked. When they heard God’s

  voice, they were ashamed and hid themselves. God asked Adam why he was hiding. Adam

  replied that they were naked and ashamed. God asked Adam how he knew he was naked:

  did he eat from the fruit that was forbidden? Adam replied, “The woman Thou gave me

  made me eat thereof.” When God asked Eve about that, Eve stated, “The snake beguiled

  me into eating the forbidden fruit.” Although the authors are paraphrasing the story, it is

  obvious that things have not changed much since the Garden of Eden [1]. Persons accused

  almost always look for someone else to blame for their situation. Often, it is the victim they

  Effective Interviewing and Interrogation Techniques

  1

  # 2011, Elsevier Ltd.

  2

  1. THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

  blame. This is an excellent example of how humans rationalize to escape punishment and

  conceal the truth.

  The earliest form of lie detection probably was trial by combat, resolving an issue

  through strength of arms. In primitive hunting tactics, it was not uncommon for hunters

  to shoot an arrow or spear into an animal that would only wound it. The hunter would then

  track the wounded animal until it died either from loss of blood or from the poison often

  used on the arrow tip. Consider the problem of two primitive hunters who approach a

  fallen prey. Each believes it was his arrow or spear that killed it, and that it belongs to

  him; they refuse to compromise. As simplistic as it seems, each sees himself as making a

  truthful claim and the other as not. To decide the “truth,” which actually means possession,

  they engage in combat. The ideal assumption is that the individual with truth on his side

  will prevail. However, the most cunning and skilled of the combatants usually was victori-

  ous and thus declared himself as having the rightful claim.

  This scenario had changed very little by medieval times. It was then customary that

  knights engaged in mortal combat to decide whose lord was in the right in any given con-

  troversy. Although the practice was functionally the same as trial by combat, the ethical

  premise was different. It was held that the knight representing the truth would be victori-

  ous because of “divine intervention”—that is, that a just God would not allow injustice to

  prevail.

  Even today, on any given weekend night, a police officer may be called to a club or bar

  where two men are about to engage in combat to determine which of them is telling the

  truth about whom the woman seated between them is really with. As you can see, the test

  of “trial by combat” lives on.

  The next development in the search for truth was trial by ordeal [2]. It was once again

  assumed that God would intervene on behalf of the innocent; that is, God would protect

  any innocent individual from harm, as was the case with Daniel in the lion’s den. Although

  these attempts to detect truth appeared to be laden with religious beliefs, they were in fact

  based on practical observations of both psychological and physiological phenomena, which

  play an important role in truth-finding processes.

  For example, in China, in approximately 1000 BC, it was common practice to have an

  accused person chew a handful of crushed dry rice, and then attempt to spit it out (certainly

  not much of an ordeal) [3]. If the rice became wet, and therefore easy to spit out, the person was considered truthful. If the rice was dry and it stuck to the suspect’s mouth when he

  tried to spit it out, then he was thought to be lying. Divine intervention was not involved

  in this outcome as much as was the salivary gland. This somewhat benign test was based

  on the physiological phenomenon of inhibited salivary gland activity caused by fear or

  stress. The truthful individual had normal salivary gland activity, causing the rice to

  become wet and easy to spit out. The stressed or deceptive person had a dry mouth, and

  the crushed rice in his mouth remained dry and when he attempted to spit it out it stuck

  to his mouth. It is unclear ho
w the Chinese arrived at their test for truth—whether they

  merely observed that liars’ mouths remained dry, or had some understanding that the auto-

  nomic nervous system inhibits salivation and all digestive processes when an individual is

  under serious threat. It should be noted that Chinese traditional medicine has been around

  for some 5000 years.

  1. THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

  3

  Interestingly, testing for a dry mouth was, and still is, found in a wide range of unrelated

  cultures worldwide. The most severe version of these tests often consisted of putting some

  kind of red-hot metal object on the tongue. If the person were truthful, the normal saliva in

  the mouth protected the tongue, acting as a “heat sink” to dissipate the burning. If the

  person were lying, the mouth would be dry, and the hot metal would burn the unprotected

  tongue. Even today, in some countries in the Middle East, it is common that the accused in

  minor cases can choose this traditional method to assert his innocence [4].

  In various societies, truth tests were developed whose premises were psychological, not

  physiological. Trial by the “sacred ass” is a classic psychological test that was practiced in

  India around 500 BC [2]. In this test, a donkey was staked out in the center of a pitch-dark hut. The suspects were told that inside the hut was a “sacred ass” that could differentiate

  between a truthful person and a liar. It did this by braying only when the guilty (lying) per-

  son pulled its tail. They were also told the animal would remain silent if an innocent (truth-

  ful) person pulled its tail.

  Each suspect was directed to go into the hut alone, with specific instructions to pull the

  tail of the “sacred ass.” What the suspects did not know was that the priests had covered

  the donkey’s tail with lamp black. A truthful individual, having nothing to fear, entered

  the dark hut and pulled the donkey’s tail. The donkey may or may not have brayed, but

  those who were innocent came out with soot all over their hands. A guilty party, on the

  other hand, would enter and, not wanting to risk disclosing his guilt, would not touch

  the donkey’s tail. He might promise it a carrot, or stroke its head, but he would not pull

  the tail. After all, he believed if he did not touch the tail of the “sacred ass,” it would have

  no reason to bray, and the priests would incorrectly identify him as truthful. The elegantly

  simple truth was that because he did not pull the tail, it was easy for the priests to properly

  identify him as the culprit by his clean hands.

  In the 1950s, rumors have it, the Philadelphia Police Department had a detective division

  that innovated an interesting psychological test for truth. The suspect was seated in a chair.

  One detective stood behind him holding a thick telephone book; the other one stood

  directly in front of him. The latter detective informed the suspect that he was going to

  ask him some questions, and as long as he answered questions truthfully, there would be

  no problem. The suspect was also told, however, that if he lied, the detective standing

  behind him would hit him in the head with the telephone book. “It won’t leave any marks,”

  he was told, “but it will hurt like hell!” The detective would then begin with some irrele-

  vant questions: “Is your name James Smith?” “Were you born in Pennsylvania?” “Do you

  reside at 412 Mercy Street?” Then the detective would ask a strong relevant question:

  “Did you steal that missing deposit?” and they would observe whether or not the suspect

  flinched or ducked as he answered the question, indicating he anticipated being hit with

  the phone book because he was lying. This was an involuntary reflective reaction that

  would only occur when a person knew he was lying and anticipated being hit.

  Society’s next advancement in its search for truth was trial by torture. This had a dichot-

  omous effect for law enforcement. Every crime could be solved by confession; unfortu-

  nately, it was not always solved by identifying the actual perpetrator of the crime! The

  assumption was that the innocent suspect would withstand any amount of suffering to pre-

  serve his reputation and, in religious societies, his immortal soul. In reality, given enough

  4

  1. THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

  pain, any man might confess, and most torturers knew that. The “trial,” in fact, became

  indistinguishable from the punishment itself and was justified in that the “truth seekers”

  found almost everyone guilty. Trial by torture was the method of justice during the infa-

  mous witch hunts and inquisitions in Europe.

  These latter are of particular interest, because they did not have as their basis the seeking

  of truth. Rather, the method addressed a perceived threat from forces whose existence

  could not be proven. Thus, trials by torture were not always designed to find truth, but

  sometimes to justify and validate the prejudices and fears of the society and the claims of

  its leaders. Such “trials” were commonplace during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

  and continued into more recent periods when people believed that witches or some other

  group (e.g., Jews, Communists, reactionaries, homosexuals) threatened the social order.

  In the past, there were two ways in which an inquisitor attempted to prove a person was

  a witch [5]:

  1. By finding the “Devil’s Mark,” or

  2. By getting a confession.

  The Devil’s Mark was an alleged spot on a witch’s body that showed she had been

  attached to the Devil (much as we have a navel where we were once attached to our

  mothers). Although the Devil’s Mark was invisible, it could be found because it was a spot

  on the witch’s body that would not bleed. Suspected witches were tied down and continu-

  ously pricked as the inquisitors searched for the spot. It is not known how many witches

  were discovered by finding the elusive mark; however, many “witches” confessed during

  the process. Unfortunately, trial by torture is still used today to solve “crimes” by confes-

  sion, the solution of the crime being of greater importance than whether the suspect is

  guilty or innocent. This was unfortunately demonstrated when treatment of detainees

  and prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other holding areas by United States interviewers and

  interrogators was revealed [6]. More about torture is found in Chapter 14 of this book.

  As civilized societies searched for a more just and credible way to separate the innocent

  from the guilty, trial by torture lost credibility and was replaced by trial by jury. Although

  the jury in its early form was not made up of one’s peers, it is the origin of our judicial sys-

  tem in which the “Finder of Fact,” either a judge or a jury of peers, listens to evidence intro-

  duced by witnesses. The Finder of Fact then decides the defendant’s guilt or innocence

  based on some standard of proof.

  As is still the case in our current judicial system, this involves the evaluation of objective

  facts—that is, data that can be confirmed physically—and the testimony of competent wit-

  nesses and experts. The latter involves the subjective interpretation of the witnesses’ credi-

  bility and/or expertise by the judge or jury and, among other things, is subject to

  manipulation by a clever liar. Although the jury system
proved more humane and more

  just, the Finder of Fact’s inability to separate truth from deception in complex cases leaves

  it seriously flawed.

  The infamous Dreyfus case, in which a Jewish-French army officer was falsely convicted

  by fabricated evidence and a prejudiced court, focused attention on the need for a better

  means of detecting liars and their fabrications. That need was experimentally addressed

  in a series of scientific attempts beginning in late nineteenth-century Europe. By this time,

  the scientific community had a basic understanding of the autonomic nervous system.

  1. THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

  5

  Scientists understood the physiological changes that occurred in the human body caused by

  fear and stress and correctly assumed that those changes would occur when a suspect expe-

  rienced the fear of being caught in a lie. The research centered on finding a reliable and

  timely means of measuring those changes.

  In the early 1890s, Angelo Mosso, an Italian physiologist, studied the effect of fear on the

  cardiovascular and respiratory systems. Mosso was particularly interested in measuring cir-

  culatory flow changes in the body. He developed a mechanical device known as the “Scien-

  tific Cradle,” often called “Mosso’s Cradle.” This device was nothing more than a balanced,

  table-like platform, mounted on a fulcrum [2].

  Mosso theorized that the flow of blood to the head changes during emotional stress, such

  as that caused by fear of detection. This, he believed, explained why a person’s face flushes

  or whitens during emotional states. He theorized that this sudden change of blood flow to

  the brain caused by fear would result in a slight shift in the subject’s body weight, and thus

  a corresponding measurable movement of the cradle.

  Mosso proposed he could analyze the lines drawn on the kymograph and determine the

  credibility of the witness. There is, however, no evidence that Mosso ever put his theory

  into practice. In all probability, the device was too crude and unreliable to make the kind

  of measurements that Mosso would have needed.

  In 1895, Cesare Lombrosso, an acquaintance of Mosso, applied the use of more precise

  instrumentation sensitive to changes in volumetric displacement to measure emotional