COMMENTARY | The investigation into what happened to missing Kansas City baby Lisa Irwin who disappeared from her crib three days ago hit a snag yesterday. Police announced that Lisa’s parents Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin stopped cooperating with them. Today the Irwins shared their side of the story, saying police have been accusing Bradley of involvement in her baby’s disappearance. Bradley told Associated Press Friday that police insisted she failed a polygraph; her husband’s offer to take a polygraph was rebuffed. A Good Morning America report said the couple says police tried to pit them against one another.
As the person who was responsible for the baby at the time of her disappearance, Bradley deserves a close look from police. But a close look doesn’t warrant junk science or unsubstantiated accusations. That’s what police appear to be using in trying to pin the blame for a disappearance they can’t explain on the easiest target, the mother who was in the home with the baby when she disappeared.
* Polygraphs are so notoriously unreliable that they aren’t admitted in court. The National Academies of Science National Research Council looked at polygraph accuracy in 2002 and concluded that they are unreliable, that the physiological responses of deception are not unique. Yet police routinely use them to intimidate potential suspects.
* Courts have upheld police telling lies to try to pressure potential suspects to confess. Lies like “you failed the polygraph.” Bradley never should have agreed to take a polygraph because it couldn’t help find her missing daughter and could only lead to mischief. But having taken it, she deserves to see a formal written report of the results.
* Police should be held to standards of truthfulness in all communications with potential suspects and witnesses. A citizen who lies to police can be criminally charged with impeding an investigation if the lie misleads police. Policemen who lie too often instigate false confessions and convictions. False confessions are the leading cause of wrongful conviction according to a 2003 study, up from third leading cause in the 1980s. Yet police who procure false confessions with lies are not charged with crimes, nor are they held accountable to the people harmed by their lies.
* The ends do not justify the means. Our social systems need to set an example for honesty and integrity, not get away with as much as they can.
Deborah Bradley is suffering enough with her baby missing without the cruelty of being treated like a criminal by the police or enduring police efforts to turn her husband against her. Nor should he be pushed to suspect his wife instead of supporting her and receiving support from her through this difficult ordeal.