Name: Michael J. Musto
Background: Musto graduated from Loyola University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and entered Reid College in Chicago, where he learned to operate the polygraph machine during a six-month internship. After passing state licensing, Musto earned his master’s degree. He started working for the State of Illinois in 1975.
Years as a polygraph operator: 18
I travel to all 50 facilities in the Department of Corrections for the state, including work release and juvenile centers. I’m called in for everything from criminal investigations involving homicide, stabbings and rape to internal investigations of unprofessional conduct by staff members.
Each facility has an internal-affairs investigator who works on incidents that occur inside the prison. Some cases are very clear-cut. If the guards see one inmate stab another, they prepare the case for trial with their visual evidence. Polygraph is brought in when there is a question of someone telling the truth.
Polygraph is not admissible as evidence in a criminal trial. The benefit of bringing in a polygraph operator is to help focus the investigation. If one person stabs another and there are no witnesses but an investigator has certain suspects, I can test them and declare, “This one is telling the truth, and this one is lying.” That helps him gather the physical evidence needed to make the case.
During the testing, it’s just the examiner and the subject in a room. First, the person taking the polygraph signs a consent form to submit to the examination. Even in prison, the test is voluntary, and I have people refuse every day.
There are three sensors of instrumentation on a polygraph: a mini-graphic that is strapped across the waist and chest to measure changes in respiration, electrodes that are placed on the fingertips to measure sweat, and a common blood-pressure cuff.
Before the machine is turned on, I conduct an interview to get a little biographical information. I’ll ask the person to tell me their version of the story. From that, I will prepare a list of questions that I will ask on the polygraph test. The normal test only has 9 or 10 questions that take about three minutes to run through. That same set of questions is repeated three or four times to determine a consistency of responses. The polygraph produces a tape that I analyze to determine whether the individual is telling the truth. The whole process of setup, questioning and analysis might take an hour.
Technically, the examination is done when I turn off the machine. If I think the person is lying, I would test them further to get an incriminating statement. And I have had people confess their crimes to me after the machine is turned off and they’ve lied during the test.
Let’s say there is a stabbing. I’ll start by asking the person’s name and their health situation at present. Then I might ask what they knew about the crime. Were you there at the time it took place? Did you see it happen? Why do you think they’re saying you’re the stabber? Did you know the person who was stabbed? Is there some reason someone would say you did it?
The polygraph is not 100 percent accurate. There are variables that can affect the test. Someone may not show an emotional reaction to an interview. Someone may be sick or on drugs or alcohol, or someone who has had a death in the family is thinking more of that than the interview.
By and large, the inmates take my judgment professionally, not personally. Essentially, of all the people I test, I end up telling 30 percent of them that they’re a liar. But it isn’t a personal attack, and they respond in kind.
When a person is lying, you’ll have signs like a suppression of respiration, a rise in pulse. It’s an emotional reaction that causes a changeover in the nervous system. Your body kicks into a different nervous system.
If I’m telling you a lie, my body goes on alert, and a rise in blood pressure and pulse, changes in sweat-all the types of things I’m comparing on the test-will show up. Nervousness can show up on a polygraph test, but it looks different than lying. A qualified examiner has to differentiate between these reactions.
I truly don’t think that there’s anyone who can control their reactions on a polygraph. They can distort them by breathing real fast or tensing their muscles. They’re trying to beat the test, but who they’re beating is the examiner. Everybody has their own little techniques for how they’re going to beat the polygraph. But nobody beats a machine. It records what it’s supposed to, and the reactions will be there. It’s the examiner’s analysis of the questions that might come up with a faulty diagnosis.
I like my job. I’ll walk in and be told, “We don’t know who is telling the truth in this investigation.” And I can say that this person is lying and this person is not. Then I’m on cloud nine because I’ve helped resolve the problem.
Then there are times when I have to say, “I’m sorry, but the test is inconclusive.” Then everybody thinks, gee, what a waste of time that was.
The down side is being on the road when my kids are in a play at school. And it’s sad to see some of the miserable side of the human condition. When you see a mom and her kids come to Stateville to see Dad for Christmas, and some 6-year-old comes to visit his dad who is in chains, that’s a sad and ugly part.
The high point is when I’m the only one saying (someone is) telling the truth. When further investigation bears out that they were telling the truth and did not commit the crime, that’s very satisfying. It’s akin to a lawyer’s winning a case.
Once I had to test 15 guys for a murder case down in Menard. At the end, I walked in the office and said, “Warden, this is the one who did it.” They searched this inmate’s cell and found a bloody shirt, the evidence they needed to show he had done the crime. But it was just as much of a thrill to say the other 14 people were innocent. People think a polygraph is there just to get dirt on someone, but a lot of the time, we’re just trying to verify the truth.
