◆ SpookStack

A arent nn tnabnent ee cichneene te e eo Belt: T can understand how the use. wire tipping. however distasteful, mighe occasionally be unavoidable in order to bring a guilty man to justice—or to save an innocent one. But this sort of thing is uuerly and completely abhorrent, totally impermissible whatever the justification. I's far more immoral than the immorali- ties it seeks to eliminate. How would you like to make your living by gluing your eyes to a hole in a john to see what's happening on the other side? TURNER: I've done it—and I hated it. There is no more miserable, degrading work than that kind of surveillance. But quite apart from the basic indecency of it, this kind of Peeping Tom work is grossly unconstitudonal: it's an invasion of privacy’ without even the pretext of looking for specific evidence of a specific crime. It’s just a dragnet operation in- vading the privacy of perhaps a thou- sand innocents in the vague hope of catching maybe one guilty man. But the police don't hesitate to employ these methods with just that hope. And, un- believably enough, many courts actually admit that improperly obtained kind of evidence; it’s done all the time. PtayBoY: The reliance of police on the polygraph. or lic detector. as an interro- gational technique is even more wide- spreed chan their use of wire tapping, bugs. mail covers and peephole spving iu surveillance work. Distrust of the poly- graph’s findings, however, has spurred many cities and six states to oudlaw its use, and it has recently been under attack or investigation by labor unions, the De- fense Department and a Congressional subcommittee. Is their disapproval jus- tifed, in your opinion? BELLI: Not in my experience. I’ve used it many umes and found it a most useful and often an invaluable instrument. Once, I remember,- the prosecution wouldit Tet us give polygraph tests to three of my clients on condemned row in San Quentin, so we took the complain- iINg witness to Reno and tested him there. His story proved to be completely un- true: so we saved three men’s lives with that inachine. PEMBERTON: Whitever its effectiveness in detecting lies, the fact remains that the Polygraph viekites a person’s right not to tesuily against himself. ‘Vhe individual is courced by the threat that he will be presumed guilty if he refuses to submit. No less invidious is the fact that during the test he answers dozens of questions - irrelevant to the crime, thus giving the police information that neither they nor anybody else has a right to know. And some polygraph operators have reported that certain subjects who haven't been Caught in a lie nevertheless show “dishon- est’ tendencies.” It doesn't tnke much ituitive ability to conclude that a ma- chine snd caverstec ceed cob. oa en eee ee tape eemeRR AM a ee A ee ee ’ PLAYBOY: The Conere:sconal commitice that recently investipaicd the polygraph —which was being considered for Gov- ernment use—concluded that there is no such thing as a “lie detector” and that the machine's purported infallibility is a howx. Would you agree with thav? TURNER: J. Edgar himself told the War- ren Commission, “The FBI feels that the Polygraph tcchnique is not sufficicntly precise to permft absolute judgments of deception or truth.” But 1 happen to know for a fact that the FBI uses the polygraph on its own personnel. PLAYBOY: For several years, critics of the police. especially in cities with large Ne- gro and Puerto Rican populations, have been clamoring for civilian review boards with power to fire or discipline law-enforcement officers for improper conduct or procedures, including the use of the investigational and interroga- tional devices we've been discussing. Police respond that they should be al- lowed to police themselves. How do you gentlemen feel about it? RUSTIN: IT cannot understand police ob- jection to the idea. While one function of the board would certainly be to pro- tect the public against police malfea- sance, another equally important function would be to clear innocent policemen of baseless charges brought by mischief- makers. How could an innocent police- man object to that? PEMBERTON: What the police object to about civilian review boards is the possi- bility that all kinds of wild accusations against them will get into their records and haunt them for the rest of their ca- veers, even if they're exonerated. Ir doesn’t seem to bother them that this is precisely what happens to innocent pri- vate citizens who get picked up in drag- net roundups for police interrogation. That arrest is on their records whether or not they're ultimately convicted. So it turns out that policemen are just as sen- sitive as ordinary citizens about having their records needlessly besmirched. INBAU: It’s for that very reason that I feel civilian review boards would serve merely to frustrate and demoralize the police. Vhe right thing to do is what we did in Chicago after the scandalous dis covery a few years age that many police were involved in a burglary ring. The public was so outraged that they de- minded a new superiniendent of police. The city brought in’ Orkindo Wilson, who used to hold the same chair in crim- inology at the University of ‘California now occupied by Dean Lohman, by the way. Under his leadership, Chicago is now protected by what is fast becoming the best police force in the world. It’s a force much more mindful of the rights of the public than the old force, and FR |: eee aD oo eile es meter ee i 1 1 ! i i