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The Lie Detector's Inventor Who Wanted It Banned
Crime, courts & justice10 min

The Lie Detector's Inventor Who Wanted It Banned

William Moulton Marston built the polygraph and championed it in court, but the man who inherited its legacy watched it convict the innocent for decades. This is the story of how a flawed machine became gospel in American interrogation rooms, and the 1923 ruling that tried to keep it out.

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Show notes

Elizabeth Holloway Marston discovered the link between blood pressure and emotion in a nineteen fifteen Harvard lab.

The first modern polygraph recorded continuous pulse and respiration data on moving paper.

The United States Army rejected early lie detection technology due to concerns about its reliability.

The nineteen twenty-three Frye ruling barred polygraphs because they lacked general acceptance in the scientific community.

Modern investigators use polygraphs as psychological levers to encourage confessions through intimidation.

Polygraph results remain generally inadmissible in court unless both legal parties agree to a stipulation.

In this episode
  1. 01Intro1 min
  2. 02The Harvard Laboratory Spark3 min
  3. 03From Theory to the Modern Machine2 min
  4. 04The Frye Legacy and the General Acceptance Test3 min
  5. 05The Modern Standoff2 min
  6. 06Outro1 min
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The Lie Detector's Inventor Who Wanted It Banned — Fylom