re: New Netflix docu-series "Making a Murderer" (Spoilers)

I'm going off of hearsay and stuff I probably heard on TV, but I also think certain personalities can "beat" lie detectors. A true sociopath will not have the same physical reaction when lying that the system picks up. So like you said, they are accurate, but not infallible.

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I'd guess the kid did this, bc self loathing, dumb, for attention, didn't care about living in prison, his uncle did 18 yrs, and it's probably not much different then living in the Avery trailer park.
I think he looked at his future and knew he didn't really have one.

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In regards to this, I think he did it because it was truly too stupid to realize what was going on. I think he thought he would get in trouble if he didn't say those things. I think he thought that when they said "tell the truth", he had to say those things or he would be in trouble. Especially when they interview him after his lawyer's investigator interviews him. They blatantly go after the, "you aren't telling us the truth. Do you want us to tell your mom that you aren't telling the truth?". I think that he truly felt he would get in trouble and said what they wanted to hear. And told his mom the same story over the recorded phone call so that he wouldn't get in trouble when the investigators "told her he was lying". I truly feel it's as if you were dealing with a 9 year old.

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I'm obviously not a legal expert, nor do I know shite about administering lie detector tests, but if the results of a polygraph test are 98% conclusive, why should they not be admitted as evidence?

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"The question of whether polygraphs work was settled long ago"

"There's no evidence whatsoever that the things the polygraph measures — heart rate, blood pressure, sweating, and breathing — are linked to whether you're telling the truth or not," says Leonard Saxe, a psychologist at Brandeis University who's conducted research into polygraphs.

In an exhaustive report, the National Research Council concluded that "Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy."

This isn't exactly breaking news: Saxe's 1983 report for Congress ended up leading to a nationwide ban on private employers giving polygraph tests to employees, and a 1998 Supreme Court decision banned use of polygraphic evidence in federal courts because "there is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable."

A polygraph test, in essence, measures one thing: anxiety.

"All these physiological measures are simply associated with fear and anxiety," Saxe says. "And people are anxious, sometimes, when they're telling the truth, and they can be not anxious, sometimes, when they're lying. The more practiced you are at lying, the less anxiety is associated with it."

When accused of an actual crime, many people understandably become anxious, even if they're innocent.

But American law-enforcement agencies continue to use them, despite what critics claim is a lack of evidence that they actually work.

"it doesn't matter whether the test actually works, just that it's perceived as effective"

"If the examiner does the interrogation theater well, and tricks the subject into believing that his or her lies can de detected, they might confess," he says.

Why does this apparently flawed technology refuse to die? Partly it’s our fascination with gadgets: “We use technology for so much nowadays that it would make sense to apply it to lying. And it would be great if it worked. But it would have been great in the Fifties, too; it didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now,” says Prof Wiseman. And yet enthusiasts and pressure groups keep pushing it?

It's akin to a simple blood pressure reading...every time you go to the doctor, it can be different, and higher if you're nervous about being at a Doctor's office, if your feet aren't firmly planted on the ground, if you have problems in your life or if you just have natural anxiety as part of your normal person.

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It is admissible if the judge rules it to be admissible. And btw, polygraphs are not "so unreliable that it is basically pseudo-science", they are actually very reliable and accurate, when administered by an accredited examiner. They are not however, infallible.

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Polygraph exams are very inaccurate my friend. All polygraphs do are monitor blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, and skin activity. All of that can fluctuate dependent on the scenario one is put in.

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if you believe that Avery did it, wouldn't you have to also believe that Dassey was involved?

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I'm not sure why you would.

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But wasn't he with him a good deal of that afternoon and evening?

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So guilty by association.

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I don't see how you can separate the two

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Because they are two seperate people, who may have spent time together, but we have no solid evidence of when and where it occurred. There is reasonable doubt that Steven did it; that is about the upper bound of evidence against Brendan.

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And btw, polygraphs are not "so unreliable that it is basically pseudo-science", they are actually very reliable and accurate, when administered by an accredited examiner.

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No they're not.

Polygraphs are a bait-and-switch routine. The "machine" isn't putting those readings through an algorithm or displaying them in a manner that makes it possible to determine if a person is lying. It hasn't even been established for certain what lying definitely looks like in the output or if a person's honesty can be determined by the measurements it is taking in the first place.

The function of the polygraph machine itself as an object is in establishing the whole rouse that there is such a machine. Getting the person taking the "test" to believe in the machine is the whole key. Then, how they use it is, regardless of whatever garbage it spits out, they tell the subject "Hey, you failed. The Machine says you lied." They tell everyone they failed to see what they will say. At that point, they're hoping that if you are lying and you believe in the machine you will think you are caught and fess up. That's the whole game. It's just a trick.

Everyone who watches Making A Murderer comes away thinking there was fishy business and certainly seems like there was "reasonable doubt" as to both Avery and Dassey's guilt.

From there, people react to the stimuli in two different ways based on their biases:

Person A wants to beleive that power is corrupt and the game is rigged. They got all they need to know from watching the doc and they firmly beleive Avery is innocent and nothing.. Up to and including a confession from Avery would ever change thier mind. It would be an interesting study to know this type of person's thoughts on other conspiracy theories. If I had to guess, I bet they beleive in JFK conspiracy and others. I'd also bet the are folks content to source their news only from sources that match their political persuasion.

Person B watched the doc and while bothered by the evidence supporting police corruption, dug further. They read additional articles from different sources. Once having done so, it's pretty hard to believe that Avery didn't kill this woman, and that Dassey took part. There is tons of evidence not shown in the documentary that would be almost impossible to refute clearly pointing to these guys being guilty. Type B person is I'd wager on average more skeptical of conspiracy, probably less politically rigid and demands extraordinary evidence before subscribing to any particular belief.


Just an observation.

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Person A wants to beleive that power is corrupt and the game is rigged. They got all they need to know from watching the doc and they firmly beleive Avery is innocent and nothing.. Up to and including a confession from Avery would ever change thier mind. It would be an interesting study to know this type of person's thoughts on other conspiracy theories. If I had to guess, I bet they beleive in JFK conspiracy and others. I'd also bet the are folks content to source their news only from sources that match their political persuasion.

Person B watched the doc and while bothered by the evidence supporting police corruption, dug further. They read additional articles from different sources. Once having done so, it's pretty hard to believe that Avery didn't kill this woman, and that Dassey took part. There is tons of evidence not shown in the documentary that would be almost impossible to refute clearly pointing to these guys being guilty. Type B person is I'd wager on average more skeptical of conspiracy, probably less politically rigid and demands extraordinary evidence before subscribing to any particular belief.

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Person C: Believes that there was sufficient evidence shown in the documentary to believe that neither the Avery or the Dassey trial should have landed a conviction based on how our criminal justice system is theoretically designed (burden of proof is on the state, innocent until proven guilty, etc...). Avery may have committed that crime, but that's a separate discussion from how the investigation was conducted and trialed.

Yeah your link is just pure opinion, probably written by a former cop or ADA.

The WM3 were "arrested bc of solid police work."

They "were arrested bc they were murderers" - really, isnt that up for a jury to decide? You arrest people on suspicion and then you hope to allege

That whole article is "every book and doc alleging their innocence is a lie bc I say so"

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My conclusion is that you exhibited very poor observational skills and logical-reasoning. In other words, your conclusions are pretty ignorant.

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Why are trying to pick fights with everybody? This is the 3rd or 4th person you have straight out called ignorant and you are just coming off as a douche now. People don't agree with you, get over it. You keep pounding reasonable doubt like it isn't a subjective/personal thing. But it is. I respect your opinion and I see faults in some of my own. Doesn't mean you should be hammering and snipping people the way you are.