Nothing But The Truth

NASA scientist Allen Atkins suffered through a painful divorce in which his former wife accused him of spousal abuse, which he forcefully denied. He becomes determined to invent a “foolproof” lie detector so this can’t happen again to him or others. When he showed a prototype to a close friend and lawyer, his friend immediately suggested using it on a murder trial of a friend of his and several trial witnesses that he was sure were lying. In the first real test of the system, the trial judge allows the lie detector system to be used, but the equipment must be in the back of the courtroom where the witnesses and the jury cannot see it.

About 30 years after the Kennedy assassination, there was a documentary that showed how technology of that time (1990s) might have made a difference in the investigation into Kennedy’s death, if it had been available. There was an interview with Lee Harvey Oswald as he was being led from jail to the courtroom and scientists analyzed his answers to questions with a Voice Stress Analysis meter.

The meter indicated his answers were not true. I then searched more about Voice Stress Analysis and lie detectors in general to learn why they are not admissible in a court of law. People can be trained to fool a regular lie detector or take drugs that reduce their responses to lies, so lie detectors have been deemed not reliable enough for a jury to assume the results are accurate.

This led to the idea that modern computers and Artificial Intelligence processors could combine multiple methods (Voice Stress Analysis, blood flow patterns on the face and changes in the concentration of exhaled Carbon Dioxide) to more accurately determine if answers to specific questions are truthful or not. This is the basis for “Nothing But The Truth”.