Devil's Knot_ The True Story of the West Memphis Three - Mara Leveritt [92]
You don’t have to question him because he wants to get it off his chest…. They relive some of the sensations at the time of the crime…. And if the confession is really valid, they will offer some incidental detail which lends credibility to their story. Maybe they’ll say, “At the time we were doing this, some man was walking his dog off in the distance.” Or, “Just at the precise moment I was doing this there was an automobile accident,” and later you will find out that actually occurred. You look for those incidental details they can offer. If it is a valid confession, and you make a supposition and you’re wrong, they will tell you you’re wrong. They’ll answer every question directly. You don’t have to correct them…. You don’t have to lead them in any way….
When asked specifically about Jessie’s confession, Holmes replied, “What I don’t like about his confession is he doesn’t attribute any conversation during the crime to the boys. I don’t like it that he doesn’t express any feelings about the crime, how he felt at the time, how he feels now. I don’t like the fact that he’s giving wrong information about the ligature which should absolutely stand out in his mind, and I don’t like the time factor. It would seem to me that despite his IQ level, he should know the difference between 9A.M . and 5P.M . And he somehow should know the difference between a rope and shoelaces. Those things bother me a lot.”
“Can a polygraph examination contribute to a false confession?” Stidham asked.
“Unfortunately it can.”
“How is that?”
“Because with some people, it is a last hope,” Holmes explained. “They think, ‘Okay, if I take this test and I pass it, you’re going to get off my back,’ and then when they are told that the test indicates they are lying, that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and then their will is beaten to a pulp, and then they just give up.”
“Mr. Holmes, you have had an opportunity to examine the polygraph test that was performed on Jessie Lloyd Misskelley on June 3?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us what your findings were?”
“Well, they were different from the other examiner,” Holmes replied. “He indicated he thought there was deception at the points in the graphs where the pertinent test questions were asked. I evaluated the charts, and I have come up with just the contrary opinion. I didn’t feel that at the point where the pertinent test questions were asked that the defendant was deceptive in nature.”
“In your report you list some factors that trouble you,” Stidham said. “Could you explain those to the court?”
Well, this was an ideal case for what we call a peak attention test, where you set up a series of questions, where one is the key detail, and in this case there should have been a peak attention test regarding whether or not the boys were tied up with plastic tape or wire or shoelaces. And the theory being, of the items listed, if the examinee reacts to the key one, he definitely has pertinent information with regard to the crime in question. So you keep taking that key detail and you shift it around in a series of different tests, and statistically, if he reacts each and every time to the key detail, there’s a large probability that he has intimate knowledge of the crime. Also, a peak attention test could have been conducted regarding the location of the clothes.225
“Is it true,” Stidham continued, “that if an examiner didn’t interpret the test results properly, that that might cause the interrogator to become more assertive and produce a false confession?”
“It’s a catalyst. If the examiner goes out and says this guy is deceptive, he’s involved, that’s all those interrogators have to hear. That gives them the enthusiasm to be more assertive in their accusatory format. Sure. It is a catalyst.”
“Is it important,” Stidham asked, “when you’re trying to corroborate a confession, that you find things independent of the confession linking the suspect