That’s a response to a question, not an answer to a question. The Siege prevents evasiveness or rules-lawyering, except that a poorly-phrased question may not elicit the desired answer. Ask Bill Clinton if he engaged in coitus with Monica Lewinsky, and he’s compelled to answer but can (in fact, must) say no, because he never inserted his penis into her vagina. Ask him if he had sexual interactiosn with her, and he can’t equivocate, because he knows she applied her lips to his phallus.
What would be interesting to see is if the “double jeopardy” procedural defense would be thrown out with the introduction of the SP. For example, (hypothetical since he’s currently doing time) imagine law enforcement grabbing OJ right off the golf course after a brand new warrant was issued for his arrest. This machine could spell doom for defendants who got off scot free in their original trial.
I’m pretty sure that’s the book I was thinking of.
How is this different from DNA sampling or fingerprints? We compel people to produce those all the time.
But this chair doesn’t improve testimony all that much - it just eliminates deliberate lying. Mistaken IDs, crazy people, genuine forgetfulness - all unchanged.
You would have to get a warrant for this, but I would be all in favor of its use. Including taking it into consideration when someone refuses to testify.
Regards,
Shodan
…sure, it sounds good, but I’ve got my strong doubts. If people can find a way to abuse a good thing, some people will. Me, I guess I’ll just need to work that much harder to never be suspected in the first place, and never be asked to take the chair. …Or at least be less a suspect than the next guy, who probably has his own skeletons in his own closet.
That, maybe, and maybe really convincing myself that we can’t really know anything, can we, so the best answer to any question just might be “I don’t really know.”
Who said it was a good thing? Using it on spouses and children, as a few persons have suggested, strikes me as quite disruptive to the family relationship. And I’m not convinced it’ll be all kittens & hugs in its effects on the criminal justice system either.
Would you say it would be a net positive though? I can’t see how it would be really that detrimental. As I said above, humans get accustomed to whatever system they are in. Just because right now we have things like the 5th Amendment doesn’t mean it should always be that was, especially if we obtain a piece of technology that throws that out of the water
If a person had some deep secret that they didn’t want to reveal, then there are always confidants to confide to. Maybe they could close the courtroom and get in the chair only before the judge and the 2 lawyers and they would determine what is and what isn’t relevant. That’s just one idea, there’s a bunch of ways humans can be made to get used to having to tell the whole truth
The law often lags behind technology, but I see no reason why a truth chair couldn’t play an important role, with proper safeguards, in the legal system. What that role is, and what the safeguards ought to be, is something to be decided through the same democratic process with which we address most major policy issues. It wouldn’t particularly worry me.
Take a seat, Ben. Now tell me, how did my father die?
I’d be all for using this frequently in the legal system. The money saved in investigation alone would be mind boggling. Suspects could simply be asked a relevant set of direct questions and then either detained or released. With that huge roadblock out of the way we could refocus our hearings and sentences to reflect degree of infraction rather than a simple crime/ sentence.
For example:
“Mr Lamp: did you have possession of the quarter pound of weed the officers found at your home?”
“Yes, it was mine.”
“Did you intend to sell, trade, or otherwise distribute it for profit?”
“No I was going to smoke it all myself, maybe share a little at a party.”
"Thank you Mr. Lamp. That will be all. "
No more bullshit intent to do this or that charges, no more wasted time and money building mountains of evidence. In this example the jury now has to decide how harshly to punish the person before them based on truthful knowledge of his infraction and motivations.
I don’t know of any language that is sufficiently free of ambiguity to prevent these assertions from being mutually exclusive, if the interrogation subject is sufficiently clever.
I am reminded of Randall Garrett’s story “The Best Policy”, in which a human interrogated under a lie detector by aliens comes up with true but misleading answers (e.g. stating that humans have the ability to mentally channel certain physical forces to transport their bodies from one location to another) that give the impression that the aliens are messing with people who are not to be messed with.