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240 Ga. 76

239 S.E.2d 324

State v. Chambers

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided October 18, 1977

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1977-10-18

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“There is simply no `lie detector,' machine or human. The first recorded lie detector test was in ancient India where a suspect was required to enter a darkened room and touch the tail of a donkey. If the donkey brayed when his tail was touched the suspect was declared guilty, otherwise he was released. Modern science has substituted a metal electronic box for the donkey but the results remain just as haphazard and inconclusive.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 177 Ga. App. 639 - In the Interest of G. G.

Relies on Stack v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1977-10-18

How this case has been cited

Cited by 136 later decisions — most recently June 2021 · most notably Williams v. State (1983), Harper v. State (1982)

127 state decisions

750197719801990200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Jordan, Justice,

¶1dissenting.

¶2The law has been settled for years in Georgia that results of polygraph tests are inadmissible and without probative value. This is based on the lack of scientific proof of the accuracy and reliability of such tests. Now, without any scientific authority or other rational basis, this court would open the door for the admissibility of such tests. While some jurisdictions have arrived at the same result, the rule in most jurisdictions comports with the Georgia view. See Stack v. State, 234 Ga. 19, 21 (214 SE2d 514).

¶3There is simply no "lie detector,” machine or human. The first recorded lie detector test was in ancient India where a suspect was required to enter a darkened room and touch the tail of a donkey. If the donkey brayed when his tail was touched the suspect was declared guilty, otherwise he was released. Modern science has substituted a metal electronic box for the donkey but the results remain just as haphazard and inconclusive.

¶4The state should not be able to convict nor the defendant to gain acquittal on the basis of such tests, even though both are willing to stipulate its admissibility.

¶5I respectfully dissent.

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