Saturday, March 25, 2000
Appeals court rips judge for OK'ing lie-detector tests
BY DAN HORN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Judge Robert Kraft lost another battle Friday in his campaign to allow lie-detector tests in court.
An appeals court ruled that the judge was wrong last year when he told a man accused of robbery that he could take a lie-detector test to prove his innocence.
The defendant, Eric Brand of South Fairmount, asked to take the test after claiming that he did nothing wrong.
Judge Kraft, a longtime advocate of allowing polygraph results in court, said he would allow the test no matter what the results were.
Prosecutors, however, objected to the decision, arguing that polygraph results are not considered reliable and have never been allowed in Ohio courts.
In a 3-0 decision, a panel of the Ohio 1st District Court of Appeals agreed with prosecutors.
“The trial court abused its discretion in ordering the polygraph examination and in holding that the results of the test would be admissible in the trial,” the judges wrote in their decision.
They said no evidence was presented to support the reliability of polygraph tests.
They also said the judge was wrong to approve the test over the objection of prosecutors.
Mr. Brand's attorney, Peter Rosenwald, said his client now must decide whether to appeal the ruling to the Ohio Supreme Court.
History, however, is not on his side.
While the tests are commonly used by law enforcement agencies — 62 percent of them, according to one recent study — courts across the country have consistently rejected their use in trials.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1998 against using polygraph evidence in court.
Mr. Brand, 22, had argued that he should be allowed to take a test to prove his innocence.
He was a suspect in a robbery in August 1998 when a police officer shot him in the arm.
The officer said Mr. Brand reached for a gun.
His case has been on hold pending the appeals court decision on the polygraph issue.
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