The Colorado Supreme Court issued an opinion yesterday ruling that the Fifth Amendment protection against self incrimination precluded a probationer from being violated for refusing to answer a question on his polygraph.
This is the second such opinion to come up this month and the second time a superior court ruled that an individual’s refusal to answer a question during a polygraph could not be grounds to indict him for a crime or probation violation.
In this case, a man on probation was asked questions during his polygraph which he felt, if answered, could be used to incriminate him. He asserted his Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer. As a result of the failure to complete the polygraph he was unable to “successfully” comply with treatment, as a result of his failure to comply with treatment, probation sought to have him revoked.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that his privilege against self-incrimination could not be used to revoke his probation based on his refusal to answer questions that could have incriminated himself.
The full opinion can be found here: http://floridaactioncommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Colorado-Supreme-Court-Polygraphs.pdf
Again another suit filed and won not in florida. whats going on in this state? wheres our support? i dont understand why it seems everytime i hear something go rso’s way (which is rare) its usually in the mid or northwest. we have one law suit in tampa and as far as i know thats it and that one didnt go our way there has to be someone somewhere that can file and win a lawsuit in our behalf in florida and let the rest of the country say i hope that happens here too
Mark,
Clearly you don’t read our posts very often… FAC alone is a named plaintiff in three suits; one regarding residency restrictions, one regarding proximity ordinances and one regarding internet identifier requirements.
You should become involved with FAC. Where’s our support?
if you read my comment it says “won” here in the state of florida i know of all the law suits pending including the one in pasco county that we just lost the john doe decision on. and as far as support i financially give money every month to the f.a.c i cannot do much more as i work a lot of hours and have rso probation restrictions. it just seems that the midwest and the north west has more success when it comes to winning legal support for rso’s its not a personal attack on the f.a.c. I am a human and want to be treated as one some day and i dont want to have to move out west to do it
Florida is good ol’ boy conservative. California is liberal. The states in between are “in between”. A lot of the reason Florida is the worst is because the culture we live in.
Great news. Let’s hope that the same thing can happen here in Florida. I have passed all of my polygraphs so far, but it is absolutely the most stressful thing I do all year. And that is because of the possible negative interpretation from the polygrapher.