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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gordon A. Langston who wrote (21542)	6/25/2000 1:53:00 PM
From: Father Terrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

If I were accused of murder and I knew I was innocent and I knew (beyond a shadow of a doubt, to coin a phrase) that the "truth" drug was 100% reliable, I would certainly wave my Fifth Amendment rights and take it and prove my innocence. It is my understanding that the intelligence community has objective proof that it is 100% reliable. If true, that would tend to end the Death Penalty controversy, at least it would for me because personally I see no moral problem with executing individuals who have violated another individual's supreme right: the right to life. My stand against the present system is that it cannot guarantee that innocents are not executed along with the guilty. To me, that is an atrocity.

To: Gordon A. Langston who wrote (21542)	6/26/2000 1:18:00 AM
From: nihil	Respond to of 769670

No problem with the Fifth Amendment on truth drugs or lie detectors. Taking the tests can be made voluntary and multiple. If the defendant refuses to take the tests, the jury can be informed of this without violating anyone's rights and can draw what conclusions it wishes. Using testing theory and metaanalysis legislatures can determine an acceptable level of false positives (p < .01 or .001) and psychologists can determine compatible critical levels on batteries of tests. My reasing of the current literature suggests that the tests are not good enough to determine outcomes reliably without a substantial number of false outcomes (unjustified executions) and a very large number of false negatives. Of course, given the incompetence of most detective forces and the intrinsic difficulties of determining guilt, I think this is the way to go to determine guilt in most cases. Much cheaper than forensic investigation.