Suppose someone developed a perfect truth serum. Anyone taking it would be compelled to answer any question put to him as honestly as possible, i.e. not only would his statement be technically correct, but it would be his best attempt to give a full and complete answer to the question. He would not free associate like Robin Williams (as I’ve seen truth serum depicted in the movies); he would not give a technically true but non-informative song and dance like a campaign spokesman dealing with an embarrassing issue (“the important thing here is that the American people are concerned about jobs”); he would not take refuge in minutiae (“I don’t know exactly when I left work,” when he in fact knows within ten minutes or so); etc.
He would also not be compelled to volunteer any information not implicit in an honest answer to the question. It would wear off after 30 minutes with no after-effects, and could be re-administered any number of times with complete safety, and no loss of memory.
And to prevent an obvious flaw, let’s make it magical, and not compel answers to questions that are too general, i.e. “Have you done anything illegal in the past five years?”
Do you think the government would suppress it? Would you suppress it? Would you want it to be allowed during a trial, or during police questioning? Would you want our soldiers and intelligence agencies to use it against enemy combatants or agents? If you have an objection involving the Fifth Amendment, would you favor a new amendment that would allow the use of the drug?
Suppose we have the same drug, but it does not compel speech. That is, the subject has the choice of giving a full and honest answer, or saying nothing. Would that change your willingness to allow its use?
It’s a mind altering substance that forces someone to say what the interrogator wants them to say. Any claims that what the interrogator wants them to say is the truth should be viewed with suspicion.
On the one hand, it seems like a great idea. We’re not averse to the idea of trying to extract truthful testimony out of people - that’s what interrogation, cross-examination etc are about, or should be about.
On the other hand, the potential for abuse seems scary. Nobody is perfect all of the time - do we want to live in a world where we have to attend a scheduled confession at which we betray every last little misdemeanour in order to be punished. I don’t - I mean, I don’t want to get away with murder, but the other night when I was driving alone at 2AM on a deserted road, I may accidentally have transgressed a speed limit. What I did wasn’t right, but it wasn’t all that wrong either. Can the authorities be trusted with such a powerful tool?
And that’s what it boils down to, I think - the question is not whether the magical truth serum is a good or bad thing, but whether or not we could trust those in power to temper its usage.
Don’t fight the hypothetical - this is an actual truth serum, and you get the actual truth.
To the OP: what’s wrong with general questions? If the subject remembers the answer, let him say it.
The first thing to note about this stuff is that it doesn’t discriminate between relevent questions and irrelevent questions. It opens up the subject to being interrogated about his lusts, his sex life, his politics, whether that dress makes his wife look fat - any witness would be subject to social crucifiction when put on the stand. This is probably a bad thing.
The variant where you can suppress answers just means that everyone will assume the worst if you choose to keep your mouth shut.
Obviously if one side of the political machine can selectively use it on the other, or one country can use it on another, they could easily destroy the other side.
…Okay, seed the clouds with it. As long as everyone has it, it’ll be fair at least, and I’m okay with watching society collapse as long as it’s interesting.
I would use it instead of the promise to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” on witnesses. I would not allow it to be involuntarily administered to defendants if they chose not to testify. And police would have to get a warrant before they gave it to suspects. And non-police administering it to citizens without their consent would be a serious crime.
Otherwise, I think it would be a major benefit to mankind.
I would support an amendment that the President has to take a good big whack of the stuff before every State of the Union address. Entertaining, if nothing else.
I would allow it, but make it a huge federal crime to administer it to someone without a court order / permission. I’d similarly make it illegal to ask questions that don’t pertain to the warrant, “So tell me Senator, have you ever had a gay fantasy?”
I’d, if the technology/magic would allow it, make it obviously change something about the person. Like his eyes become pure white, his voice gets an awesome reverb effect or whatnot. Make it so it is obvious that the person is under the effects of the drug.
This is an interesting question because parts of government might want it (like law enforcement, the CIA), and others (like elected officials) would want to bury it.
But there’s a lot of questions that need to be asked:
How is it administered? Can it just be slipped into someone’s drink who will take it without even noticing? Injected? Inhaled? Will the subjects know they are being drugged? Would they remember afterward?
My guess is that, under current law, nothing the police learned from it, either directly or by later investigating the statements, would be admissible in court.
I would feel much better about it if it just prevented lying but it was possible to refrain from answering a question while under it. Otherwise I see 5th amendment issues. Further it would need to be heavily restricted in it use.
This is exactly NOT how I would allow it. It pretty much destroys the concept of being not compelling self-incrimination. Though maybe it could be used on people who are given immunity from whatever they say, which would be a very risky policy to have, and a whole lot less fun.
Nit by law. A jury almost certainly wouldn’t be told the defendant refused to take the truth serum. Similarly, they are often instructed not to make any negative inferences from the fact that a defendant refuses to take the stand and testify at his own trial.
Suppressing it is the worst thing you could do - because then its use would be covert, one-sided, and corrupt. I’d rather spread the word of how to make the potion to everyone in the world, than attempt to suppress it (though, given a full-range of possibilities, a phased introduction would probably be better - if it’s to be used on the stand by a defendant, the prosecutor and his witnesses have to use it too - to answer such questions as “Do you know of any evidence that might exculpate the defendant?”).
I’m not fighting the hypothetical, I’m explaining why I’d be opposed to its use: because I do not recognise the validity of the evidence gained from its use.
Except that that’s wrong - specifically you said it “forces someone to say what the interrogator wants them to say”, which is precisely incorrect, if you’re implying that it can be used to coerce invalid evidence. It can’t, unless the evidence is invalid for extraneous legal reasons, because the drug would always produce a confession as valid and true as the confesser could possibly provide. It doesn’t get any better than that.
If your point was just that the application of the drug would breach the fifth amendment, just say that. But it sounds like you think it could be used to force false confessions, which is not the hypothetical given.
