Cesspool of Pseudoscience: Your Local Police

by David Mills

Cesspool of Pseudoscience: Your Local Police

Copyright 2000,

by David Mills

[email protected] All pseudosciences (or false sciences) share at least five common elements:

1. All pseudosciences believe that an individual's internal emotional state or feelings point to, or prove, some kind of external, objective reality.

2. All pseudosciences bypass traditional methods of scientific confirmation and rely instead on the subjective, highly dubious, and unverifiable testimony of "true believers" and "experts."

3. All pseudosciences attempt to affirm or rebut specific theories by "looking into the eyes" of the witnesses and by observing their "demeanor."

4. All pseudosciences quickly resort to needlessly complicated or meaningless jargon as a substitute for intellectual substance.

5. All pseudosciences ultimately rely on gimmickry and outright fraud to "prove" their theories valid. If these five characteristics are hallmarks of a pseudoscience, then the majority of police departments across the United States clearly qualify as cesspools of pseudoscientific malpractice. Although most citizens do not usually think of their local police as an organization of professional scientists, police departments throughout the nation have, for a decade, waged a public-relations campaign to emphasize how dazzlingly scientific are their investigative techniques.

Police want you to think of them as champions of the scientific method, both because science lends prestige and credibility to their investigative efforts, and because juries are more likely to convict suspects fingered by "experts" from the police crime lab. Police departments are therefore striving mightily to establish the term "Police Science" as a common phrase in the English language.

But the term "Police Science" is, in reality, an oxymoron: a self-contained and flagrant contradiction in terms. Police investigators are no more scientific in their pursuit of criminal suspects than are astrologers in their pursuit of futuristic visions. Moreover, "Police Science" poses a grave threat to our civil liberties because the freedom of innocent people is imperiled by this pompous and pretentious charade.

Why do I label the police as practitioners of pseudoscience? Lie Detectors Twenty years ago, I published a book titled Holy Hypnosis in which I detailed fifteen methods used by various religions to brainwash (or hypnotize) suggestible individuals into joining the creed and believing religious doctrines. The number one method of Holy Hypnosis is to convince the potential convert that his emotions represent more than just feelings in his gut: His emotions are profound evidence of the imminent presence and operation of supernatural Powers.

Protestant Fundamentalists, for example, are taught that a holy ghost "dwells in their hearts." If a Fundamentalist sins, his feelings of guilt do not result solely from his belief that he has displeased God. No. His guilt results from the Holy Ghost's "convicting him of his sins and motivating him to repent." If a Fundamentalist feels peaceful or happy at other times, his feelings are not merely the result of his belief that God is pleased with him or that he is going to Heaven. Heavens no! His serene feelings are the Holy Ghost's "comforting the hearts of God's children with an inner witness." So regardless of whether the religious adherent experiences pleasant or anxiety-plagued emotions, these emotions are viewed as evidence that the Holy Ghost really does exist and that the religion itself has thereby been proven valid.

In actuality, emotions, whether soothing or upsetting, prove only that individuals do hold specific beliefs. Generally speaking, the more strongly a belief is held, the more intense will be the emotional response. An individual's emotions do not prove, however, that the beliefs themselves are correct. To therefore assert an inextricable link between your transitory, internal feelings and external, objective reality is to embrace mysticism and pseudoscience of the worst sort. We may contemplate our own navels until doomsday; but in doing so, we engage only in self-absorption and self-delusion, rather than scientific inquiry.

In stark contrast to the scientific method, your local police believe that there is a mystical link between outside reality and a person's inner gut feelings. Police departments routinely employ so-called "lie detector" tests in their effort to prosecute and jail criminal suspects. Although most states wisely prohibit the introduction of "lie-detector" results into criminal trials, most prosecutors rely heavily on these tests in deciding whom to indict. And because most indicted suspects are found guilty (rightly or wrongly), the "lie detector" is probably the single most important determinant of who goes to prison and who avoids trial altogether. Moreover, unlike in criminal proceedings, judges in civil lawsuits frequently admit polygraph "evidence" into court. The jury, basing its verdict upon this "proof," may then impose millions of dollars in penalties on a completely blameless company or individual. The question, therefore, of whether "lie detectors" are reliable and scientific is a question of extraordinary consequence.

Whoever originally coined the term "lie detector" was, undeniably, a public-relations genius; for it is impossible to speak or write the term "lie detector" without simultaneously attesting the reliability of the device. When you call it a "lie detector," you strongly imply that it does detect lies. But even the most ardent defenders of "lie detectors" have, in recent years, abandoned the term in favor of calling it a "polygraph," which, they hope, sounds more sophisticated and scientific, and less subject to ridicule from the scientific community.

In my opinion, the most accurate name for the device would be "nervousness detector" because, at best, nervousness is all the machine detects. (I shall hereafter refer to "lie detectors" or "polygraphs" as nervousness detectors, although many psychologists argue that the device doesn't even detect nervousness reliably.) The theory under which police operate is that suspects who lie under interrogation are nervous, and that this nervousness is evidence of their lying. But the obvious fallacy, here, is the presumption that the only reason for a person to be nervous is that he or she is lying.

Police misuse of nervousness detectors has a sorry and disturbing history. Prior to the advent of DNA analysis (which we shall discuss later), police either believed or scoffed at a rape victim's allegations based upon how she performed on their nervousness detector. The traumatized victim was typically wired up to the machine and asked questions such as this: "Did the alleged assailant place his hand on your breast?" "Did the alleged assailant violently tear your skirt and remove your panties?" "Did the alleged assailant have an erection?" "Did the alleged assailant forcefully insert his penis into your vagina?" "Did the alleged assailant threaten to slit your throat if you refused to cooperate?"

It is truly stating the obvious that these questions would evoke an intense emotional reaction in any woman who had recently suffered the horrors of molestation, because such questions would remind her all-too-vividly of the crime perpetrated against her. It is likewise fair to say that even a woman who had not been raped would be emotionally traumatized by such probing and intimate questions leveled at her by a stranger, who was almost invariably a man.

But police didn't see things that way. If the rape victim became emotionally agitated during the inquisition -- as revealed by the nervousness-detecting machine -- then she was probably lying. She was inventing the rape story to attract sympathetic attention to herself, or to frame someone she disliked, such as an ex-boyfriend. When answering police questions, she displayed signs of anxiety "because her conscience was bothering her." And her conscience was bothering her "because she was lying."

Police will howl in protest that, today, they have changed their methods. Today they use "control questions" and a "soothing atmosphere" to "guarantee" that only false answers evoke nervousness in victims or suspects. Let's say, for example, that I'm arrested on suspicion of robbing a local bank. Police haul me to the station and set up a nervousness detector in a "soothing atmosphere" (sic). I could of course refuse to take the test, citing my Fifth Amendment rights. But police -- and the public at large -- would conclude immediately that I must be guilty of the crime. Why else would I refuse the test?

So I voluntarily submit to the nervousness detector and am asked a series of so-called control questions: "Is my name David Mills?" "Was George Washington the first President?" "Am I an American citizen?" "Are my eyes brown?" These control questions are supposedly asked to check my physiological response to telling the truth. I am then instructed by the examiner to falsely answer a control question. For example, I might answer "no" when asked whether my name is David Mills. The examiner then checks my physiological reaction to this known lie and establishes my "base" or "set point" on the nervousness detector.

Now, the examiner begins the official test. I may be asked whether I was in the vicinity of the bank on the day it was robbed. I may be asked whether I know the whereabouts of the stolen money, or whether I was in fact the robber himself. Sandwiched between these relevant questions will be other control questions, such as "Is the bank located on 4th Avenue?" or "Are there windows in the bank?" According to police theory, these control questions will help me relax, so that any marked alteration thereafter in my physiological reaction must indicate deception.

Such control questions might indeed effectively serve the intended purpose if the person under examination were so utterly stupid as to be unable to differentiate a control question from a relevant question. The average person, however, is clearly able to distinguish a control question from a relevant question and therefore suffers apprehension and anxiety in direct proportion to the relevance of the question. So, while I may not feel threatened by a question regarding my eye color, and suffer no anxiety at that moment, I probably will feel seriously threatened -- with a trial and imprisonment -- when questioned about my alleged participation in a bank robbery. The more relevant the question is to the charges against me, the more anxiety I feel when hearing that same question, whether I'm guilty or not. So the entire theory behind the use of "control questions" presupposes that the individual under examination is both highly unintelligent and highly insensitive to his own emotions.

A psychological phenomenon called "cascading emotion" tends to overtake many individuals hooked to a nervousness detector. When people are asked directly whether they committed a crime, they virtually always experience at least mild anxiety. People who are at all introspective or sensitive to their own emotions will of course notice that they are anxious. Since they realize moreover that their physiological reactions are being closely monitored, they fear that their anxiety is indicating deception to the examiner. This fear that they are failing the test further heightens their anxiety, which, in turn, leads to greater fear and greater anxiety. An individual's emotions may, in this manner, cascade out of control until the needles on the nervousness detector are literally flying off the paper. Some people have literally suffered full-blown panic attacks while truthfully answering questions posed by polygraph examiners.

Every human being is different, with a unique psychology and a singular emotional constitution. Every person reacts differently to stressful circumstance; and any police interrogation would, in my view, have to be regarded as intensely stressful. Even if, theoretically, a nervousness-detecting machine could be finely tuned to reveal the truth or falsity of one person's testimony, the machine would then be ill-adjusted to fairly evaluate a different individual, whose emotional sensitivities may be wholly dissimilar. Even the noted FBI polygraph expert Drew Richardson was forced to confess on this point that "The diagnostic value of this type of testing is no more than that of astrology or tea leaf reading." Yet police and government agencies continue to give tens-of-thousands of nervousness-detecting tests a year. Why?

One reason is that nervousness detectors provide a ready-made excuse for lazy government investigators to sit idly on their butts. Take the case of Aldrich Ames. Ames was a 52-year-old, 31-year veteran of the CIA, having access to secret intelligence data critical to US security. Ames had for years been a traitor, selling CIA secrets to foreign powers for over two-million dollars in payoffs. Ames had even sold the names and addresses of US covert agents working abroad, many of whom were executed as a direct result. The money that Ames "earned" betraying his country was used to fund his ultra-lavish lifestyle -- a lifestyle about which Ames publicly boasted. All of Ames's family, friends and neighbors knew that he was somehow earning a literal fortune to support his extravagance.

Meanwhile, back at the CIA, Ames had submitted year after year to all routine nervousness-detecting tests required of CIA employees. Each time, Ames passed the test without arousing suspicion that he was a traitor. Even a cursory examination of Ames's finances or possessions would have instantly revealed that his meager government salary could not support his opulent living. But why should the government conduct a real-world investigation when it's so much easier to use a nervousness detector instead? After being tipped off, the FBI finally arrested Ames in 1994, ten years after he had first masked his crimes using bogus "lie-detector" results. Said Ames from behind prison bars, "You have to realize that the government swears by these lie detectors. First, they swear that they don't swear by them; then they swear by them. I always found that if I got a good night's sleep before the test and just relaxed, I could pass without any problem."

So nervousness detectors not only make innocent people look guilty, they frequently make guilty people look innocent. In a 1998 case argued before the US Supreme Court (United States versus Scheffer), government lawyers stated that "Polygraph evidence is inherently unreliable as evidence in a trial. There is no objectively verifiable method of determining the accuracy of a polygraph examination." Others argued in court that if an individual "presses his toes firmly against the bottom of his shoe, the lie detector can be fooled."

That's right folks! Just press your toes firmly against the bottom of your shoe and lie away. The nervousness detector, in all its scientific glory, will be dumbfounded. It is open to debate as to which theory is more rattlebrained: (a) the claim that toes bewilder "lie detectors," or (b) the claim that "lie detectors" work in the first place.

Let's pause for a moment, and think carefully about the statement made by US government attorneys before the Supreme Court: "There is no objectively verifiable method of determining the accuracy of a polygraph examination."

In point of fact, there is a verifiable method of determining the accuracy of a polygraph examination -- a method which I myself desperately sought to pursue in 1995. I had been extremely skeptical for some years about the scientific basis of these tests; so I attempted to conduct my own experiment by undergoing several polygraph examinations myself. I sent the following letter to fourteen different businesses which advertised themselves in the Yellow Pages or on the Internet as "Polygraph Examiners": "Dear Sir:

"I understand that you conduct polygraph examinations for hire. At your convenience, I wish to schedule such an appointment. I am researching the scientific validity of the polygraph device and want to undergo the examination myself. My intention is to incorporate your test results into an anonymous statistical analysis, along with results submitted by other polygraph examiners. I wish your examiner to report whether, during my examination, I truthfully answer each of the following 25 questions:

1. Did your father serve in World War II?

2. Was your first car a Volkswagen?

3. Do you live in a brick house?

4. Is your middle name Allen?

5. Do you have two brothers?

6. Did you wear braces on your teeth as a teenager?

7. Is your shoe size 10?

8. Have you ever broken a bone in your body?

9. Did your mother attend high school with Soupy Sales?

10. Did you vote for Walter Mondale in 1984?

11. Do you frequently watch Zorro on the Disney Channel?

12. Are both of your wife's parents deceased?

13. Is your second cousin Gene Cernan?

14. Did you ever shake hands with Princess Diana?

15. Have you ever tasted coleslaw?

16. Is your daughter's hair brown?

17. Do you live on a one-way street?

18. Have you visited the State of Michigan?

19. Were you married in Poland?

20. Do you currently own a Japanese car?

21. Does your mother-in-law live on Staten Island?

22. Are you a graduate of Ohio University?

23. Have you ever smoked a pipe?

24. Do you have diabetes?

25. Did you ever ride a motorcycle?" Because of the ubiquitous sloth, discourtesy, and inefficiency of the American business community, I fully expected that some of my written appeals to the polygraphers would go unanswered. That is why I sent out fourteen letters when my actual intention was to undergo only four or five examinations. Even I was surprised, however, when none of the fourteen polygraph consultants agreed to examine me. Only one of the fourteen bothered to contact me at all, writing that "We prefer to deal with group contracts rather than individuals."

While I hesitate to play "mind reader," I think it's fairly clear that the primary reason that the polygraph examiners refused my money was that I would obviously know damn well whether I was lying or telling the truth in answer to my own self-written questions. The person actually being tested, therefore, would not be me, but the polygraph examiner and the polygraph device itself. Apparently, none of these fourteen businesses had enough confidence in their nervousness-detecting gizmo to accept my money and to be held accountable -- even anonymously! -- for the accuracy of their tests.

Although I have, to this day, never managed to take a polygraph examination, I recently engaged in a lengthy conversation about "lie detectors" with a retired police detective. Although this gentleman never personally administered these tests, he stated that he frequently ordered them done as part of his official investigations. (I might add that this retired detective was, by all accounts, a public servant of impeccable integrity and courage. He is likewise a man of extraordinary talents, who can singlehandedly build an elegant home or paint a portrait as realistic as a photograph.) So I was naturally quite interested to learn of his professional experiences with nervousness detectors.

Like the CIA, he absolutely swore by them. He was so enthusiastic in his praise of the polygraph that I asked him the following question: "In all of your decades of service on the police force, did you ever know of a single instance in which a polygraph indicated that someone was lying when, you later determined, he was actually telling the truth?" His immediate response was "no." In other words, he devoutly believed that the nervousness detector never falsely implicates an innocent person. This detective, in my opinion, accurately reflects the generally-held belief among police departments that the nervousness detector is practically infallible. As Aldrich Ames said, "You have to realize that the government swears by these lie detectors. First, they swear that they don't swear by them; then they swear by them."

This universal belief among law enforcement officials -- that nervousness detectors are virtually infallible -- is itself good evidence that the tests are highly suspect, to say the least. All legitimately scientific tests will, from time to time, yield false results. And any member of the scientific community who publicly announced that he had devised an infallible test (of any kind) would be viewed as a fool by his professional colleagues. In the real world of science, false results are to be expected, as physicians who read PAP smears and mammograms will openly and honestly admit. Devout beliefs in infallibility are therefore articles of religious faith and evidence of pseudoscientific crackpotism. No scientific test is infallible; and no "infallible" test is scientific. And nervousness detectors are neither infallible nor scientific.

Just as Creation "Science" preserves the infallibility of its doctrines by ignoring or rationalizing any contrary evidence, defenders of nervousness detectors preserve the infallibility of the polygraph by concocting twisted excuses for test results which are incompatible with police theories of the case. If, for example, someone who doesn't like you tells police that you are a child molester, you could be hooked up to the nervousness detector at police headquarters. If you pass the test, police do not thereafter concede your innocence and apologize. Never! The reason that you passed the test was that you have been "calcified," by which police mean that you have been hardened and desensitized to the horrible nature of your actions by your frequent repetition of the crime. You therefore have no conscience left upon which the "lie detector" may act. So if you fail the test, you are a child molester. If you pass the test, you are a serial child molester.

Police will occasionally concede that a person may fail the polygraph even though he is truthfully denying the charges against him. But, again, police do not admit that their device is mistaken. The reason that their "lie detector" implicated the wrong person was that, even though the suspect is innocent of the specific charges currently against him, the suspect must be guilty -- because the "lie detector" said so -- of similar past criminal acts, which are haunting his guilty conscience. In other words, if police discover incontrovertibly that you were 1000 miles away when the local bank was robbed, your having failed their nervousness detector means that you must be guilty of other bank robberies instead. As with all religions and pseudosciences, anything which disagrees with the official dogma is explained away with tortured logic and absurd rationalization.

According to Doug Williams, "the polygraph is a sick joke." Doug Williams is a former Detective Sergeant with the Oklahoma City Police Department. Williams is also a renowned polygraph examiner, who administered over 6000 tests before decrying his chosen profession as a "total hoax." Williams writes that "The polygraph is not a lie detector. Don't make the mistake of thinking that, just because you are telling the truth, you will pass the polygraph test."

Williams appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes to document on camera his critical assessment of the polygraph. He hired three polygraphers to question suspects about a crime that never actually occurred. All three polygraph examiners confidently labeled these innocent people as "liars." Williams himself then took the test under disguise and lied about literally everything, including his own name. The polygrapher then told Williams that he (Williams) was "the most honest person I ever tested." So let's burn this honest man's words into our memories: "The polygraph is a sick joke."

In many states, there are no conditions or educational requirements of any kind to become a polygraph "expert." Tomorrow, I could mail-order a polygraph device, print business cards, and advertise myself as "David Mills, Polygraph Expert and Consultant." I may then be hired by your boss to sit in judgment of you, determining whether you get a job promotion because of your honesty, or are fired because you "deceptively" answered my questions about stealing company assets. Many businesses lazily and foolishly hire such "experts" to assess the truthfulness of resumes submitted by prospective employees. Ironically, most of these resumes could be evaluated more economically and far more accurately by making a few quick telephone calls to the academic institutions and former employers boasted by the applicant. But it is easier, and carries more mystique, to farm the investigation out to "men of science" and their nervousness detectors.

It would be a wonderful thing -- perhaps -- if science actually could devise a machine capable of discerning truth from deception. The guilty could be immediately fingered and the innocent swiftly exonerated. But this fanciful dream, like so many others peddled by the charlatans of pseudoscience, must be recognized as a futuristic vision, rather than swallowed naively as current reality.(1) The Mantra of Pseudoscience: "Observe their demeanor. Look into their eyes." Let's imagine ourselves at a science conference. The topic being debated is whether the universe contains enough matter to produce the gravitational attraction necessary to one day stop the universe from expanding. For six uninterrupted hours we listen attentively to the first group of astronomers. They present their painstakingly-gathered data, which, in their view, demonstrate why the universe will expand forever. After a short break for lunch, we listen for six additional hours to a second group of astronomers. They argue why, from their perspective, the scientific evidence points to the opposite conclusion -- that the universe will eventually stop expanding and collapse upon itself.

Following these twelve hours of highly detailed evidentiary presentations, a news reporter asks several scientists in the audience what conclusions they had drawn from the day's lectures, and why they agreed or disagreed with each speaker.

One scientist replies, "I agree with the astronomers who believe that the universe will expand forever. I carefully observed their demeanor as they were speaking, and they seemed to be calm and confident. None of them perspired or looked especially nervous." A second audience member states, "I find myself in agreement with the opposing camp. I looked closely into their eyes as they were presenting their evidence, and I didn't detect any sign of deception." A third scientist concurs, saying that "this afternoon's speakers were better dressed than those from this morning's session, and they didn't shuffle their feet or twitch their fingers as much during the lecture."

If an audience of scientists truly judged evidence on the basis of the speakers' physical appearance or personal mannerisms, we would consider such an evaluation to be hopelessly misguided. We might legitimately ask what the hell an astronomer's physical appearance has to do with the validity of the evidence he is presenting? We would be offended by the suggestion that a scientific discovery should be judged by the price of the speaker's suit, or by whether his eyes looked shifty or virtuous during his lecture. If nervous hands and shuffling feet disqualified a scientific theory, we would condemn this presumption as pure idiocy.

Yet in virtually every courtroom in the United States, judges instruct juries to "evaluate the credibility of witnesses by observing their demeanor." This jury instruction has been universally adopted as standard courtroom procedure; and juries do in fact render their verdicts based largely upon their assessment of the defendant's appearance and demeanor on the witness stand.

But evaluating court testimony on the basis of personal mannerisms or physical appearance is no less asinine than evaluating scientific evidence by the kindly expression on the biologist's face. To instruct a jury to "judge a witness by demeanor" is to advocate that a witness be judged by what he looks like. If he looks like he's telling the truth, you should believe him. If he looks like he's lying, you should reject his testimony. What horse shit! To judge a person's veracity by physical appearance and personal idiosyncrasies is the ultimate in bigotry, prejudice and ignorance. This jury instruction is worse than being merely pseudoscientific. It is, for the following reasons, absolutely immoral:

1. There is no scientific evidence that handsome men or beautiful women are more honest than the rest of us. Nor is there any evidence that smart people are more virtuous than the less educated. Nor are socially cultured people more trustworthy than the average blue-collar worker. Yet virtually every psychological study on the subject demonstrates conclusively that juries are indeed more likely to believe the testimony of attractive, articulate, well-mannered witnesses than they are to believe those who are homely, illiterate and socially unpolished. This unfair prejudice is itself a travesty of justice, without the judge foolishly encouraging this type of bigotry by instructing the jury to focus on the witness's appearance and demeanor.

2. Your degree of comportment on the witness stand has literally nothing to do with the credibility of your testimony. To be forced to testify in court is to become an unwilling public speaker. And public speaking always tops the list of activities most feared by the average individual. Now, you may be a wonderful public orator, smooth and composed. Or, more likely, you may be a wholly inexperienced speaker, stuttering and stammering while soaked in nervous sweat. But your integrity should not be evaluated by how slick-talking you are. The biggest liars in the world are also the slickest speakers, as the President and Congress demonstrate daily. There is in fact a direct correlation between a politician's skills as a liar and the degree of his electoral success. The more charming and confident his demeanor, the more likely voters are to believe his absurd and irresponsible promises. To rely even slightly on demeanor is to surrender oneself to being hoodwinked -- either by swallowing big lies, or by arrogantly scoffing at honest truth because it was clumsily presented.

3. Prosecuting attorneys have rehearsed and repeated their identical courtroom tactics and sermons hundreds of times. They have it down pat. They are relaxed. The defendant, by contrast, is almost always speaking in public for the first time in his life. He is under extraordinary pressure; and he is understandably nervous. Is it really fair to look askance at the defendant's testimony simply because his demeanor was less relaxed than the prosecutor asking the questions?

Many prosecutors boast in having never lost a case in court. But their pristine record is usually achieved through deliberately selecting defendants for trial who are uneducated and inarticulate. These disadvantaged defendants are typically unable to discern, and to rebut on the fly, errors of fact and logic often embedded within the prosecution's questions. Because of their unfair advantage, most prosecutors harbor a wildly inflated appraisal of their own polemic skills, which are usually mediocre at best.

4. It is said that "the eyes are the windows to the soul." But despite cliches and popular mythology, you cannot judge a person's credibility by looking into his eyes any more than you can determine his truthfulness by looking into his nostrils or up his asshole. Whether a person's eyes "look honest" is almost entirely genetic in nature. If a witness's eyes shift around nervously as he is speaking, and if he perspires and twiddles his thumbs anxiously, then he could probably benefit from a Dale Carnegie course in public speaking. But to judge the merits of his testimony by these trivial quirks of demeanor is, again, a reflection of unadulterated ignorance.

I know several people -- and you probably do also -- who can look directly into your eyes and cooly fabricate the most elaborate and outlandish lies imaginable. By contrast, I also have friends who, despite their absolute sincerity, twitch and shake while speaking like a man being electrocuted. We must descend from our pompous ivory towers, and show a little understanding of individuals whose diplomatic skills and speaking abilities are less refined than our own. Ignore any judge who instructs you to gauge a man's character by observing his demeanor.

5. If I should ever be brought to trial for a crime I didn't commit, I suspect that my demeanor would frequently alternate between fear and hostility. If I openly appeared to be wimpish and afraid, however, the jury would likely perceive my demeanor as lacking the confidence of my own innocence. In other words, my fear would indicate "consciousness of guilt." If, instead, I openly displayed hostility toward the prosecutor and the court for bringing these unjust charges against me, then my bitterness and anger would be perceived as evidence of my "underlying criminal nature."

If a defendant is soft-spoken and remains relatively calm during trial, then he is perceived as "not angry enough to be a man wrongly accused." If he defends himself vociferously, then the prosecutor trots out the cliche that "none cry innocent louder than the guilty." So if we are judged by our demeanor, we are placed in an unwinnable situation, in which our personal mannerisms -- whatever they are -- are always interpreted as indicative of our base criminality.

6. There is an increasing tendency for courts to use and rely upon the testimony of witnesses questioned on videotape. A skillful prosecutor -- or defense attorney for that matter -- can use subliminal techniques during the videotaping to make the witness's demeanor appear jittery or ominous. Television news magazine shows are notorious for using these unethical tricks to make individuals look sinister.

There is, for instance, a "privacy zone" or "comfort distance" we usually maintain between ourselves and another person. During routine conversation, this distance is approximately 3 to 5 feet. Move in closer than that, and you'll seem intimidating to the person whose personal space you have invaded.

This same "comfort distance" also applies to individuals we see on television. The camera usually maintains this "safe" distance from the subject, so that we subconsciously feel at ease while watching our local weather report or a late-night TV talk show. If, however, the camera zooms in uncomfortably close to the speaker, we feel the same subconscious foreboding as if someone had stepped within inches of our face. The result is that every shift in the subject's eye position is magnified remarkably, so that the subject looks remarkably shifty-eyed. Every tiny drop of perspiration looks like a bucket full; and every wrinkling of the forehead looks like a defiant scowl.

These tricks were used when David Frost interviewed former President Richard Nixon shortly after Nixon was forced to resign because of the Watergate scandal. Whenever Nixon was discussing foreign policy or the economic agenda he pursued as President, the camera kept its distance, showing Nixon sitting relaxed in a plush armchair. When the subject turned to Watergate, however, the camera zoomed in so tightly that only Nixon's eyes, nose and mouth were visible on screen. He looked horrible -- as most of us would; and he appeared to be extremely ill-at-ease because of the excessive magnification of his facial movements and expressions. The point here is that Nixon's words alone were sufficient evidence to implicate him as a key player in the Watergate scandal. Dishonest tricks with the camera were unnecessary and certainly led me to question whether the television production crew was pursuing honest truth or simply wanted to further smear an already-unpopular figure.

Another smear tactic used during videotaping is to raise the camera height to a level above that of the subject. The camera is then forced to "look down" on the person being recorded, making him or her appear to be cowering and unworthy of respect. Political consultants use the opposite camera angle when filming campaign commercials. The camera height is lowered so that we must "look up" to their noble candidate, who then appears to be a lofty and majestic figure perched atop Mount Rushmore. The way in which a subject is lighted also plays a critical role in determining how we perceive his demeanor, whether on screen or in person.

Fortunately, few prosecutors are savvy to these videographic subtleties of perception. But as videotaped testimony is introduced more and more into criminal and civil proceedings, the potential for abuse will grow accordingly. Most important to remember, however, is that the only reason why we are forced to concern ourselves with these video techniques is that judges instruct juries to "observe and evaluate the witness's demeanor." If this jury instruction were eliminated, and if jurors rendered their verdicts solely upon actual evidence rather than visual appearance, then a discussion of camera angles and zoom lenses would be wholly irrelevant, as it should be.

7. The most disturbing element of judging people by their demeanor is that, psychologically, we tend to approve of others only when they look and act like us. To judge a person by how he looks is therefore an open invitation to racism. The way we look -- and our personal mannerisms -- are primarily inherited characteristics. To condemn a defendant for these inherited traits is as outrageous as the Salem Witch Trials, in which defendants were found guilty because of inherited birthmarks left on their skin "by Satan."(2)

If I am a 60-year-old upper-middle-class white female sitting on a jury, then I may look skeptically upon the testimony of a black teenager with purple and green hair and rings through his nose and tongue. But such a skeptical appraisal, based solely on a witness's appearance, is fundamentally unfair and unscientific. While I myself find it difficult to understand why someone wants to pierce his tongue, there is no logical reason to believe that such an individual is more likely to lie than I am. Remember, our own parents and grandparents looked with equal disgust upon our own ways of dressing and acting as youth. So, above all, let's avoid the fatal error of passing judgment on others because their physical appearance, or ways of communicating, are not copied identically from our own "model" examples.

Instead of foolishly telling jurors to look at the witness's demeanor when evaluating testimony, judges should provide a jury instruction stating precisely the opposite. Here is my suggestion:

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury: When evaluating the credibility of each witness, you shall in no sense take into consideration the physical appearance of the witness, nor whether he or she appeared nervous or relaxed when testifying. Neither shall you be influenced by the witness's ability, or lack of ability, to speak in an articulate manner. Neither shall you be swayed, either for or against a witness, by any personal mannerisms or idiosyncrasies exhibited by the witness. You shall evaluate a witness's testimony solely on the basis of its substance, or lack of substance, as you determine from the testimony's own internal logic or from corroborating or conflicting evidence presented by other witnesses during trial." "Protecting and Serving the Public" -- through Fraud

All pseudosciences claim that their beliefs and theories are derived from a solid body of empirically verifiable evidence. When challenged to publicly disclose their "proof," however, most pseudosciences resort to (1) grossly misrepresenting the nature and quality of their "substantiating" evidence, and (2) committing outright fraud when mere distortion of the facts fails to adequately bolster the holy cause.

Once again, your local police department fulfills this definition of a pseudoscientific organization. Here's why: Dropsy Evidence

Although sworn to uphold the law and to defend the Constitutional rights of every citizen, police departments are, in reality, bitter and unabashed enemies of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects the people from "unreasonable searches and seizures" and prescribes that no person or place may be searched without a warrant "particularly describing the things to be seized." What this means is that police may not randomly search anyone they want for any reason they want. Law enforcement authorities must have "probable cause" to conduct a search and must be looking for specific, pre-defined items before the seized property may be used as evidence in court.

Nonetheless, police departments, without exception, view the Fourth Amendment as a painful thorn in their flesh and as a hindrance to the swift performance of their duties to the community. The attitude prevalent among police officers is that "If you have nothing to hide, then why should you care if we search your person or property?" In other words, the police believe that the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution was a clear-cut mistake, drafted by overly philosophical liberals unfamiliar with the real-world brutality of contemporary street crime. On a daily basis, therefore, cops on patrol face an aggravating conflict between the law and "what's best for the community."

For example, two police officers may spot a suspicious-looking vehicle -- "suspicious-looking" to them because the policemen are white and the occupants of the vehicle are black or Hispanic. Police are sadly inclined to believe that minorities have no right to drive an expensive automobile. Any minority driver, thus, who appears "too successful" immediately arouses police suspicion. Still, under the law, these officers cannot simply stop and search the "suspicious" vehicle or its occupants without reason. So what do the officers do?

If police have no legal reason to stop and search a vehicle or person, but believe nevertheless that something is amiss, police will invent a reason to stop the "suspects": the vehicle was "speeding" or "driving recklessly" or "failing to signal before turning" -- any excuse will do. When stopped, police then order the "suspects" out of the vehicle and conduct a thoroughly illegal and unconstitutional search.

The first (highly insulting) question usually posed by police to the minority driver is "Whose car is this?" Note here that, if the driver is white instead of black or Hispanic, police rarely ask "Whose car is this?" They assume that the Caucasian driver is the owner of the expensive automobile. But if the driver is a minority, then police presume that his vehicle was either stolen or purchased with drug money -- and must be searched, notwithstanding the constitutional and legal prohibitions.

During most of these illegal searches, the police of course find nothing unlawful in the "suspect's" vehicle. Do you speculate, then, that the officers apologize for their deplorable, illegal and sometimes-race-based intrusion into someone's privacy? Not a chance! The driver is told curtly to "carry on."

In the unlikely event that police do discover something unlawful during their unconstitutional barnstorming -- such as marijuana or other illegal drugs or firearms -- the items are immediately confiscated and the vehicle's occupants are often arrested. Far from being a rare occurrence, these unauthorized and illegal police searches are conducted hundreds of times daily throughout the United States. Often the victims are black or Hispanic; but anyone (including you!) may be targeted at the arbitrary whim of any police officers.

A person well-versed in constitutional law may be highly skeptical of my claim that police routinely behave in such a lawless manner. "Why," some might ask, "would police deliberately use unconstitutional means to seize evidence when such evidence cannot be legally introduced thereafter into court proceedings against the defendant?"

The answer is that the so-called "police report," filed by the arresting officers, is conveniently inaccurate in its description of how the evidence was confiscated. This report will contain one of two standardly-employed bogus assertions which police use daily to camouflage their illegal searches: (1) Police will claim that the seized evidence (e.g., marijuana, guns) was "clearly visible" when they approached a vehicle or pedestrian, thus making a search unnecessary. (2) Police will claim that, in the officers' presence, the seized evidence "dropped out of the defendant's pocket into plain view." This second lie is utilized so frequently and universally by police that it has acquired its own specialized name: "Dropsy Evidence." That's right. The police didn't conduct an illegal search. Those butter-fingered criminals just let the evidence slide out of their slippery pockets.(3)

To me, what is more distressing than these unconstitutional searches and deliberately falsified police reports is that the prosecuting attorneys, who eventually try these cases, know unequivocally that the policemen are lying in their account of events. Unless the prosecutor is new to his office, he has read hundreds of police reports detailing confiscated evidence that "dropped out of the defendant's pocket in police presence." The prosecutor need not be a genius to discern an unmistakable pattern of police deception. What, then, does the prosecutor do? Does he indict the lying officers for perjury? Are the officers then fired?

Hardly! The prosecutor is delighted that the policemen are lying about how they obtained the evidence. Otherwise, no charges could be filed against the defendant. The prosecutor therefore suborns perjury by calling the police officers to testify under oath against the defendant. Wearing an immaculate, well-pressed uniform and newly-shined badge, the clean-shaven and well-rehearsed officers repeat in court their fanciful tale about how they innocently observed dropsy evidence. Responding to each question with a choirboy "Yes Sir" and "No Sir," the officers put on a convincing show, saying exactly what the prosecutor needs, true or false, to win a conviction.

Moreover, just as prosecutors know damn well that policemen are lying about their illegal searches, judges also clearly realize that fraud and perjury are being committed under their noses by policemen on the witness stand. The worst mistake made by jurors, therefore, is to trust the judge as a neutral and objective arbiter of law between the prosecuting attorney and defense counsel. A jury should more incisively view the judge as lead attorney for the prosecution.

Whenever a member of the prosecution files a motion or petitions the court, the judge in the case usually thinks to himself "Is there any possible way I can legally grant this request?" Whenever the defense files a motion or petitions the court, however, the judge thinks to himself "Is there any possible way I can legally deny this request?" So we should not be surprised that judges virtually never throw out evidence, even though they know absolutely that it was obtained illegally and unconstitutionally. But why is this so?

Any judge who honestly and courageously defends the US Constitutional prohibition against unlawfully-seized evidence will swiftly lose his position on the bench. It's as simple as that. If the judge is an elected official, for example, his opponent in the next election will portray him as "soft on crime" for dismissing criminal charges "on a mere technicality" -- that "technicality" being the US Constitution itself. "Vote for me," says the opponent, "and I'll be a friend to our heroic police officers and be tough on crime."

If, instead of being elected, the judge is a political appointee, he is pressured equally by his bureaucratic superiors to admit illegal evidence. Take the case of US District Court Judge Harold Baer, Jr. of New York, who was appointed by President Clinton. Judge Baer had ruled that 80 pounds of cocaine and heroin confiscated by police could not be used as evidence against the defendant because police had seized the drugs "illegally and without probable cause to conduct a search." Public sentiment was so outraged by Judge Baer's constitutional ruling that the President of the United States himself sent his press secretary, Mike McCurry, to give Baer a message: "Reverse your decision or resign." Senator Bob Dole, running for President himself at the time, stated publicly that Congress should "impeach Judge Baer and remove him from the bench." Sadly, Judge Baer did kowtow to these political pressures and reversed his decision regarding the illegally-seized evidence. Whether elected or appointed, therefore, judges in the real world are pretty much forced, like it or not, to accept police perjury and illegal evidence as standard courtroom procedure.

Charles Hynes has seen dropsy-evidence cases from a variety of vantage points. He has been the Brooklyn District Attorney since 1990; but prior to that, he worked as a Legal Aid lawyer defending poor and minority clients, who make up a disproportionate number of the dropsy cases. Hynes recalls, "What I used to do when I was a defense lawyer working for the Legal Aid Society was put eight or nine dropsy cases on the calendar in a row. I remember one instance where a judge, who is now probably retired or even dead, said, 'What do you want me to do with these (police) perjury cases?', and I responded, 'Grant one motion.' He did and denied the other motions."

Hynes, in other words, cleverly shamed a judge into dismissing a case because it was based on illegally-obtained evidence -- a decision which any honest judge should render and is obligated to render under the law. More revealing, however, is that this judge, in typical fashion, permitted the other eight cases to proceed, even though he understood fully that these were illegal dropsy cases as well.

So if you should ever fall victim to a dropsy-evidence scam by police, you should not expect your defense attorney to stand up in court like F. Lee Bailey or Johnny Cochran and seriously challenge the credibility of the officers' testimony. Through past experience, the defense counsel knows that such efforts are virtually never successful, because of the judge's complicity in the stunt. Moreover, your defense counsel usually has friends on the police force and in the district attorney's office; and he is not inclined to jeopardize these friendships by calling the police and prosecution a pack of liars, even though such a description may be accurate and richly deserved. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz laments that "police are trained to lie at police academy."

In my opinion, the criminal justice system is never going to voluntarily curtail the disgraceful hoax of dropsy-evidence testimony by police. In 1994 the newly-elected Republican House of Representatives quickly sought to implement its Contract with America. First on the agenda of these "law-and-order, family-values conservatives" was legislation making it easier for prosecutors to use illegally-obtained evidence in court! These same ultra-conservative, ultra-hypocritical zealots tied America in knots for an entire year pursuing Articles of Impeachment against President Clinton for perjuring himself about "touching Monica Lewinsky's breast with the intent to arouse." Lying about sex, it appears, is cause for impeachment; whereas police perjury about dropsy evidence is to be encouraged, rewarded and expanded.

I believe that public education is probably the only means of eradicating this rampant corruption within our judicial system. The public needs to fully comprehend that tens of thousands of times per year, police allege that relevant and incriminating evidence conveniently dropped out of someone's pocket as police were coincidentally standing in the vicinity. If jurors are truly savvy to this common hoax -- which, ironically, is both exceedingly disturbing and exceedingly comical -- then I say let the police and prosecutors and judges offer all the dropsy-evidence testimony they wish. Well-informed jurors will simply roll their eyes incredulously, shake their heads in disbelief, and ask the court "Do we really look that gullible?" Then, and only then, will this farce be ended.(4)

I realize that my charges seem harsh against the police, prosecuting attorneys, and judges. But it is not my intention to ascribe evil motivations to these law enforcement officials. They genuinely believe that the end justifies the means. They are "taking criminals off the streets" and thereby protecting our communities. So what does it matter if a few "white lies" are necessary to accomplish this higher goal?

The danger, however, is that when policemen, prosecutors, and judges all conspire to deliberately and systematically violate the law -- and to subvert our Constitutional rights -- these government officials become a more ominous threat to American values than are the "criminals" they strive to imprison. If we, as a nation, want to repeal the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, let's do so, candidly and aboveboard. But, until then, let's not hypocritically claim that we are upholding the rule of law by habitually violating it.

"It's about Winning"

Like the gurus in charge of other pseudoscientific cults, law-enforcement authorities look for potential converts to brainwash. In a courtroom, these unsuspecting raw recruits are known as the "jury pool." And the method by which these jurors are handpicked for a trial is both exceptionally disturbing and highly revelatory of the prosecution's underlying motives. Contrary to popular myth, the prosecutor doesn't want a fair trial for the defendant. The prosecutor doesn't want intelligent, open-minded jurors to carefully analyze the evidence. The prosecutor wants only one thing -- to win his case through any means and at any cost.

Do you doubt my last statement? Do you believe instead that District Attorneys are genuinely more interested in "upholding justice" than in winning a shallow personal victory in court? Then let's listen to former prosecuting attorney Jack McMahon of Philadelphia. In addition to prosecuting cases himself, McMahon specialized in training rookie prosecutors how to select jurors. In 1997, McMahon's political opponent, Lynne Abraham, released to the media a videotape of McMahon's private training sessions for new prosecutors. The jury-selection methods described on this tape were -- and still are -- used widely, not only in Philadelphia, but across the United States. Transcribed from his videotape, Jack McMahon's following words tell how your local prosecutors select jurors for a trial:

"The case law says the object of getting a jury is to get a competent, fair and impartial jury... Well, that's ridiculous. You're not trying to get that... You are there to win. If you go in there, any one of you, and think you are going to be some noble civil libertarian ... that's ridiculous. You'll lose. You'll be out of the office.

"You are there to win ... The only way you're going to do your best is to get jurors that are unfair, and more likely to convict than anybody else in that room.

"You do not want smart people on the jury. I wish we could ask everyone's IQ. If you could know their IQ, you could pick a great jury all the time. You don't want smart people because smart people will analyze the hell out of your case. They have a higher standard. They hold you up to a higher standard. They hold the courts up to a higher standard ... They take those words 'reasonable doubt,' and they actually try to think about them. You don't want people who are going to think it out.

"You don't want social workers. That's obvious. They got intelligence, sensitivity, all this stuff. You don't want them ... Teachers, you don't like. Teachers are bad, especially young teachers ... If you get like a white teacher teaching in a black school that's sick of these guys (i.e., "the blacks"), maybe that may be one you accept ... Bad luck with teachers, bad luck with social workers. Bad luck with intelligent doctors.

"Let's face it ... The blacks from the low-income areas are less likely to convict. There's a resentment for law enforcement. There's a resentment for authority. And as a result, you don't want those (black) people on your jury.

"My experience, young black women are very bad. There's an antagonism, I guess maybe because they're downtrodden in two respects. They are women and they're black... so they somehow want to take it out on somebody and you don't want it to be you (the prosecutors)." So to summarize McMahon's widely-used jury-selection techniques: Prosecutors hope to seat a jury of unfair, ignorant whites. This is how prosecutors hope to win through any means, fair or foul. We have already discussed how naive jurors are being bamboozled by dropsy evidence scams. But there is a far-more-ominous fraud being perpetrated throughout US courtrooms.

Crime Labs

In theory, DNA evidence is a marvelous scientific tool for fingering the guilty and exonerating the innocent. When properly collected, stored, analyzed, interpreted and reported, DNA evidence is probably the single most reliable indicator of who, among millions, committed a particular crime. Expert criminologists, such as Connecticut's Henry Lee, have solved baffling crimes that, without DNA technology, would have been mysteries forever.

But forensic experts of Henry Lee's caliber and credibility are scarce indeed. The ugly fact is that a majority of our state crime labs are staffed by unqualified amateurs, hired by political hacks to be lapdogs for the prosecution. Just as police officers perjure themselves daily in regard to dropsy evidence, crime lab "experts" perjure themselves daily in regard to "scientific" evidence. They habitually misrepresent in court the nature and reliability of the tests they perform. And their test results are almost invariably skewed in favor of the prosecution. Too often, the results of scientific tests are completely fabricated to bolster the prosecution's case.

Moreover, these forensic "experts" often have minimal training in the scientific disciplines about which they testify in court. One week, a state "expert" may testify about DNA. The next week, he's in court describing blood spatter and how the defendant is implicated. The following morning, he's testifying about shoe prints and, in the afternoon, fiber matching. These boys from the crime lab exhibit a depth and diversity of scientific knowledge that puts Isaac Asimov to shame. But their predictable incompetence really doesn't matter, because the mission of the typical crime lab has nothing to do with science at all. Instead, the crime lab's true function is to help the prosecutor win through any means necessary.

A classic example is that of Fred Zain, former Chief of the West Virginia State Police Crime Lab. Initially, Zain got his job by lying about his background and his "education," which in no way certified him for the scientific and investigative duties of his position. In college, Zain had taken only one course relevant to his State employment -- a course in which he earned an F. Nonetheless, Fred Zain soon became a crime-solving superstar. Whenever prosecutors faced difficulty amassing sufficient evidence to bring an indictment, Zain always saved the day by conducting some kind of scientific test that implicated the suspect.

Zain was so talented that he could sometimes write a lab report before the materials to be tested even arrived in his lab! He frequently testified about the results of tests that he never actually performed. And those test "results" always pointed to the guilt of the defendant. Fred Zain was beloved by the prosecutors and police of West Virginia, and, like many other forensic "experts," he would literally say or do anything to send a defendant to prison. Scores of juries reached guilty verdicts on the basis of Zain's sworn testimony. And hundreds of "criminals" were sent to prison because of his "scientific" tests.

Then, suspicion was raised about the quality and objectivity of Zain's work. Several "convicts" appealed for independent scrutiny of Zain's laboratory analyses. Glen Dale Woodall, known throughout West Virginia as the notorious "Mall Rapist," finally persuaded authorities to let truly qualified scientists examine the genetic material collected from the rape victim. Woodall eagerly volunteered his own blood sample for comparison. The result was that Glen Dale Woodall, who, by this time, had been imprisoned for five years, was found to be completely innocent. Another man had committed the rape. The State of West Virginia ended up paying Woodall 1 million dollars in damages -- small compensation for his suffering at the hands of Fred Zain.

But the Woodall case was merely the tip of the iceberg. Zain's entire body of work became suspect. Of the first 36 cases reexamined, Zain was found to have lied about evidence in all 36! By the mid 1990's, West Virginia was forced to release many other individuals from prison -- some innocent, some guilty -- because of Fred Zain's falsifying test results to please prosecutors. Then, just when this horror story seemed to be winding down, the West Virginia Supreme Court heard evidence, on June 1, 1999, that 60 or more totally innocent people remained in West Virginia prisons due to Zain's skullduggery. Fred Zain may ultimately bankrupt the State of West Virginia paying monetary damages to those falsely imprisoned.

What do you suppose happened to Fred Zain once he was exposed as a fraud? How long did he go to prison himself? The answer is that, after Zain was thoroughly discredited in West Virginia, he simply packed his bag of tricks and moved to Texas, where he promptly resumed his investigative career! Unlike West Virginia, Texas often employs the death penalty. So perhaps it crossed Zain's mind that "dead men tell no tales." Fortunately, authorities in Texas soon became suspicious of his work and fired him. But, again, Zain never spent a day in jail or paid one dollar in fines to the State.

In late 1998, Fred Zain was finally returned to West Virginia to stand trial for his villainy. But three days before the trial began, all charges were suddenly dismissed because the indictment did not specify to the penny how much salary he had collected during his employment from 1986 to 1990. In other words, law-enforcement authorities were not really too upset with Zain; for he had been their best friend. Fred Zain indeed gave new meaning to the term "Crime Lab."

You may wonder why those falsely convicted (because of Zain) didn't hire independent experts during their trials to rebut Zain's fabricated testimony. The answer is twofold. First, dozens of defense attorneys were simply too lazy to seek an independent analysis of the evidence. During Zain's entire career, hardly any of his sworn "scientific" testimony was ever challenged at trial. Like many other white-collar professionals, defense attorneys tend to be slothful and to do as little work as possible to earn their money.

More importantly, however, no independent scientific tests could be performed unless someone paid for the tests. The prosecution uses its own crime lab and yes-men. But the defendant must pay himself for truly objective testing. Sadly, most defendants are poor and simply cannot afford to hire exorbitantly-priced private-sector science labs. Many outside experts charge 20 to 30 thousand dollars to testify at trial in your behalf! The color of justice is therefore neither black nor white, but green; for, in the United States, justice must be purchased.

Even when faced with incontrovertible proof of their own incompetence and corruption, law-enforcement authorities refuse to concede that many innocent people have been imprisoned. Take the incredible story of Wilbert Thomas, a black resident of Huntington, West Virginia. On the night of March 22, 1987, Wilbert Thomas was at home with his wife and twin boys. After tucking his sons into bed, Thomas lay down beside them and fell asleep.

Soon thereafter, Thomas was arrested by police for a rape that had occurred on that same evening. Thomas and his family swore that he had been home the entire evening, but their firm declaration of his innocence fell upon the deaf ears of the local prosecutor. The prosecution had no legitimate evidence of Thomas's guilt, so, at trial, a commendably open-minded jury acquitted him of the sexual assault charge. The jury was hung, however, on an unrelated, secondary charge of theft.

At this point, something happened that truly boggles the mind. The judge in the case, L.D. Egnor, refused to officially record the jury's verdict of "not guilty" on the rape charge, and instead declared a mistrial because the jury had failed to reach a verdict on the charge of theft. Thomas was therefore forced to stand trial a second time for the sexual assault charge -- in absolute violation of the US Constitution's prohibition against double jeopardy! Since Judge Egnor has, to date, refused to be interviewed about this case, it is unclear whether his actions were motivated by blatant corruption or unimaginable ineptitude.

During Thomas's second trial, the jury was again hung; so prosecutors decided to try the case a third time. So Wilbert Thomas faced a third trial on sexual assault charges for which he had already been found not guilty. During the third trial, prosecutors brought in an "expert" witness, State Trooper Howard Myers, who worked under the direction of his mentor, crime lab chief Fred Zain! Myers falsely testified about the results of a serology test which he had never performed. (Serology is the study of blood serum.) Myers claimed that his test pointed to the defendant, Wilbert Thomas, with a likelihood of over 99 percent. Understandably, the jury then found Thomas guilty of the rape, and Judge Egnor sentenced him to 15 to 25 years in prison.

As Thomas languished in prison year after year, both he and his family steadfastly maintained his innocence. Finally, scientists developed a new DNA technique for analyzing genetic material from rape victims. The test was performed -- by independent specialists -- on the crime victim's clothing. And Wilbert Thomas was proven not to have been the rapist. State Trooper Howard Myers, who had testified against Thomas, was later found by a Federal Court to have falsified test results as part of the State Crime Lab's "standard frame-up procedures." The Federal Court also found that Judge Egnor had clearly violated Wilbert Thomas's Constitutional rights against double jeopardy -- not to mention triple jeopardy.

So, do you think that Wilbert Thomas was then released from prison? Did Judge Egnor and the prosecutors then apologize to Thomas and implore the State Legislature to pay him a multi-million-dollar compensation? Did Judge Egnor and Howard Myers (who repeatedly lied under oath) suffer legal ramifications? Not a chance! Abandoning any pretense of neutrality, or of common decency, Judge Egnor and the local prosecutors then teamed up to file a brief of amicus curiae (i.e., friend of the court) in desperate hope of stopping the Federal Court from releasing Wilbert Thomas. As I type these words into my computer, Wilbert Thomas is still in prison, 12 years after he was arrested for a rape he never committed and for which a jury found him not guilty.

If a tiny sliver of good is to come from the tragic story of Wilbert Thomas, it may be that the public was given a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse of how our judicial system often works. As Prosecutor Jack McMahon said in his training tape: being a prosecutor has nothing to do with being fair or with being a noble civil servant. "That's ridiculous," said McMahon. "It's all about winning." And the reason that it's all about winning is that prosecutors and judges are reelected by sending lots of people to prison, not by releasing individuals whom they have falsely detained.

For law-enforcement authorities, nothing is more embarrassing than admitting that they have arrested the wrong person. That is why you never see a policeman or prosecutor apologize to a person wrongfully apprehended. Once a person is brought into police custody, the ball is rolling. And there is no turning back. Any police official who helps convict the accused is rewarded professionally, whereas any law-enforcement official who helps free the defendant is swiftly disciplined, fired, or voted out of office. "It's all about winning."

Likewise, crime lab employees get promoted and rewarded by fingering suspects, not by exonerating them. Any state-employed forensic scientist would be dismissed as incapable if he rarely found a match between the suspect and the crime-scene evidence. Regardless of how dishonest or reckless some law-enforcement authorities may be, however, they virtually never suffer negative consequences. They do not fear the law, because they are the law. They do not fear the authorities, because they are the authorities. They do not fear jail because they are the keepers of the key. Policemen, prosecutors, and forensic "experts" thus have everything to gain -- and nothing to lose -- by "enhancing" their evidence against a defendant. They rationalize their deplorable conduct by imagining that "if the defendant isn't guilty of this crime, then he's certainly guilty of others. And if he isn't guilty of any crimes yet, then we'll prevent crime by keeping him in custody."

Perhaps you believe that such egregious police and prosecutorial misconduct is confined to the back hills of West Virginia. You are confident that more sophisticated law-enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, would never engage in such Zain-like treachery. But Frederick Whitehurst tells a different story. For over a decade, Whitehurst was the FBI's foremost expert on bomb residue. Whenever a terrorist attack occurred, such as the World Trade Center or Pan Am 103 bombings, Whitehurst, along with the forensic specialists he trained, would painstakingly sift through the ruble. Using true scientific wizardry, Whitehurst and his team would determine who the culprits were, even if the terrorists had plotted their bombings in far-away nations, such as Libya or the Sudan. If there ever lived a real-life Sherlock Holmes, it was Dr. Frederick Whitehurst.

But Whitehurst was profoundly troubled by the unethical practices he observed at the FBI crime lab. Forensic evidence was routinely being doctored by the lab to support the prosecution's side in various cases; whereas exculpatory evidence -- that pointed away from the accused -- was often suppressed or destroyed altogether, again to help a prosecutor win through any means. For ten years, Whitehurst complained internally about these abuses and injustices within the FBI crime lab. But the lab's distortion and misrepresentation of scientific evidence only grew more commonplace. For example, lab reports detailing the chemical components of bomb residue would be derived, not from an examination of the crime scene or explosion epicenter, but from a list of chemicals seized from the suspect's garage! Needless to say, such lab reports invariably pointed to the guilt of the suspect. Whitehurst was also alarmed that his own lab reports were sometimes edited, censored, or completely rewritten by non-scientists at the FBI, all for the purpose of helping a Federal or State prosecutor win a conviction at trial.

After seeing innocent people go to prison, and after fruitlessly struggling for years to change the system from within, Whitehurst went public with his shocking allegations of FBI forensic fraud. Whitehurst said merely that the FBI crime lab should objectively and accurately report forensic test results, rather than writing a fictional script to compensate for gaps in the prosecution's case.

As you might guess, the FBI adamantly denied any wrongdoing. Then, the Bureau launched a sleazy campaign to publicly discredit Whitehurst. The FBI telephoned various news organizations, spreading rumors that Whitehurst was mentally unstable -- a charge which was completely false. Whitehurst's family also fell victim to slanderous FBI attacks -- reminiscent of the days when the infamous J. Edgar Hoover headed the Bureau. Even Whitehurst's physical appearance was mocked and ridiculed by FBI spokespersons, hoping to belittle their own world-renown scientist through any means possible. In direct violation of US Federal law, the FBI then leaked Whitehurst's confidential medical records to the public, a libelous move which would later cost the Bureau hundreds of thousands of dollars in civil judgments.

While the FBI waged its dirty propaganda war against Whitehurst, others in Washington listened attentively to his allegations of Bureau corruption. Foremost among them was Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa. Grassley, a tough law-and-order conservative, had always been a powerful ally of the FBI. But Grassley knew that Whitehurst had earned too much respect over the years to be dismissed as a nutcase. Grassley and others then asked the FBI to conduct an investigation of its own crime lab. Lawsuits were filed, demanding the release of FBI lab reports to outside experts for objective analysis.

In the end, Frederick Whitehurst's longstanding criticisms of the FBI crime lab turned out to be understatements. Not only had the FBI habitually doctored evidence to please various prosecutors, but the FBI lab itself no longer met the minimal requirements for basic accreditation! That's right. The world-famous FBI crime lab -- legendary in mystery novels, Hollywood movies, and popular TV series -- had degenerated into a shoddy gaggle of bungling and dishonest amateurs, unfit for basic accreditation. Moreover, Whitehurst was awarded almost 2 million dollars by the courts for the FBI's false and derogatory statements against him -- and for the Bureau's other loathsome misdeeds. Today, Dr. Frederick Whitehurst is director of the Forensic Justice Project, whose stated goals are as follows: "Review cases handled by the FBI crime lab to ensure that innocent people have not been wrongfully convicted through the misuse of forensic science;

"Monitor the performance of the FBI crime lab to ensure that the work of the lab conforms with the forty recommendations for reform issued by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General and to assure that true outside oversight of the laboratory is achieved;

"Provide expert testimony in cases in order to ensure that forensic science is not misused in civil and criminal prosecutions impacting on the public interest or the rights of individuals;

"Offer an objective scientific evaluation of scientific evidence;

"Publish or distribute information necessary for an objective analysis of the quality and objectivity of forensic science and crime laboratories nationwide." Footnotes

1. Recently, police have begun using voice tension tests in their attempts to discern whether a suspect is telling the truth. Voice-tension analysis is based upon the identical principle of the "lie detector" -- that the only reason for a suspect to be nervous is "consciousness of guilt." Voice tension tests are therefore just as useless and unscientific as "lie detectors."

2. Many American businesses have begun screening potential employees with a technique called Face Reading. Supposedly, various line or wrinkle patterns on the forehead, or certain chin sizes and structures, indicate whether the candidate will be a hardworking and loyal employee. I personally have watched videotaped job interviews in which well-qualified applicants were refused employment because "their chins jutted out, indicating that they would attempt to dominate conversation and be insubordinate."

To me, there is no ethical difference between refusing employment due to facial lines or structures and refusing employment due to facial color. Both forms of discrimination flow from ignorance, rather than science.

The pseudoscience of phrenology -- in which bumps on the head were analyzed to predict the future -- was laughed out of existence a century ago. But it appears to be staging a powerful comeback under a new name: Face Reading.

3. A new variant of dropsy-evidence abuse is for police to claim that the defendant deliberately threw the evidence on the ground, so as not to be arrested possessing it. This scenario sounds a bit more plausible but is nonetheless a fabricated tale to conceal unconstitutional police searches.

4. If you should be summoned for jury duty and want to avoid it, don't say to the judge that you have to work. Your excuse will never be accepted. Don't say that you must babysit your children. Again, your excuse will be considered insufficient. If you want to avoid jury duty, then politely say the following: "Yes, I believe that I can be a fair and impartial juror. In fact, I think I'm especially well qualified since I've been reading a lot recently about dropsy evidence." Once the prosecutor hears you use the phrase "dropsy evidence," you'll be excused in a flash, whether or not the current case involves such deception.