STATEMENT OF RECORD

Second Draft

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This is not a hypothesis.

We are not raising concerns. We are not calling for further research. We are placing on record what is known, by whom it is known, and when they knew it.

What follows is a statement of fact. It is intended to be read twice: once now, and once later, when the question is no longer whether the harm occurred but what we call the people who permitted it to continue.

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I. What We Know About Memory

In 1974, Elizabeth Loftus demonstrated that changing a single word in a question caused 32% of subjects to remember broken glass that was never there.

Not the facts. Not the allegation. One word.

This has been replicated for fifty years. The aggregate false memory rate across her research programme is approximately 22%. One in five witnesses, subjected to the ordinary conditions of interrogation and cross-examination, will carry a fabricated memory into court and deliver it under oath with complete sincerity.

They are not lying. They are remembering what the questions built for them.

Every interrogation conducted after 1974 occurred after we knew this. Every conviction that rested on witness testimony occurred after we knew this.

We continued.

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II. What We Know About Lie Detection

In 2006, Bond and DePaulo published the definitive account of human deception detection. Two hundred and six studies. Twenty-four thousand four hundred and eighty-three judges — police officers, customs officials, trained investigators of every kind.

Overall accuracy: 54.1%. Chance is 50%.

For lie detection specifically: 47%. Below chance.

The more experienced the investigator, the more confident their assessments. The more confident, the more wrong. Training does not improve accuracy. It improves certainty while accuracy stays essentially random.

Every court has a person whose job is to assess credib