One of the more obscure rulings made by Judge Kavanaugh earlier in his career is that the Department of Defense should be allowed to keep secret it’s own studies on the efficacy of lie detector tests. Kavanaugh ruled that because keeping this information secret could be useful to prosecutors, it should be kept secret.
Presumably, if prosecutors could convince a suspect that the ghost of the alleged victim had fingered him, Kavanaugh is on-board with keeping the fact that ghosts don’t exist a secret from the suspect.
More reasonably, if the prosecutor in a case asserted that fibres found on the body of the victim matched fibres found in the suspect’s closet, the defense should not have the right to ask the prosecutor how they know that the fibres don’t match fibres from anyone else’s closet. It is possible that you could find those same fibres anywhere you cared to look– there is no science behind it. Kavanaugh is on-board with keeping this a secret because it would help the prosecutors to keep it a secret.
We know what the secret is: lie detector tests are unreliable. In short, they lie. And we know how the police and prosecutors use them. They have, in the past, and probably still today, lie to suspects about the results of their lie-detector tests. You lied. We know it. You might as well confess. This, it supposed, will be shattering to the self-confidence of hardened criminals. The trouble is, it really will be shattering to the self-confidence of innocent but gullible suspects.
It also helps when they ask a suspect to take a lie detector test and the suspect, wisely, refuses. Why? What are you hiding? No innocent man would refuse.
Yes he would, if he was smart. Because if he passes the test it will not alter the beliefs of the police or the prosecutor, but if he fails the test they will flog him with the results until he confesses. They will threaten to charge him with the most serious crimes that could be linked in any way to the actual crime, unless he agrees to plead guilty to a lessor offense, providing the police and prosecutors with their scalp. How many court cases are actually settled outside of the courtroom, with plea-deals like that? Over 90%.
I was surprised– well, not totally– when Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey-Ford, announced that she had taken a lie-detector test on the subject of her attempted rape when she was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17, and passed. Kavanaugh himself should salute her: smart girl. There are a lot of suckers out there who will believe that this fact is determinant. I don’t.
It’s an interesting ruling that indicates just how far Mr. Kavanaugh is willing to go to protect the power and privileges of the nation’s police. That’s the real reason he should not be confirmed.
[whohit]Kavanaugh’s Witchcraft[/whohit]