WEBVTT - Detection of Deception 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:22.596 Pushkin. Imagine there's a place in our world where the 0:00:22.716 --> 0:00:28.836 known things go. A corridor of the mind, its walls 0:00:28.836 --> 0:00:33.316 lined with shelves, stopped with proof, and cluttered with clues. 0:00:36.156 --> 0:00:39.396 Here over, on top of this filing cabinet, a wooden 0:00:39.436 --> 0:00:48.636 box with a brass nameplate, w M M damn. It's 0:00:48.676 --> 0:00:55.396 locked this place. This vault stores the facts that matter, 0:00:55.876 --> 0:01:00.636 and matters of fact, all that stands between reasonable doubt 0:01:00.996 --> 0:01:06.116 and the chaos of uncertainty. It lies in a time 0:01:06.196 --> 0:01:10.396 between now and then. The sign on the door reads 0:01:11.036 --> 0:01:16.876 the last archive. Wind your watch back a century, step 0:01:16.916 --> 0:01:27.116 across the threshold and into a lecture hall. The class 0:01:27.116 --> 0:01:30.316 met twice a week at American University, two blocks from 0:01:30.316 --> 0:01:32.956 the White House, in the spring of nineteen twenty two. 0:01:33.516 --> 0:01:37.236 In the evening, all the students were lawyers. There were 0:01:37.276 --> 0:01:40.876 young men. The professor, only twenty eight, was hardly older 0:01:40.876 --> 0:01:45.796 than his students, William Moulton Marston. But Professor Marston had 0:01:45.796 --> 0:01:49.316 a BA and a JD and a PhD. He was 0:01:49.356 --> 0:01:54.716 an intellectual rogue, handsome, dangerously charming, almost as charming as 0:01:54.716 --> 0:01:58.676 he was ambitious. He was trying to establish a new discipline, 0:01:58.996 --> 0:02:02.516 the science of testimony. The science of how you know 0:02:02.636 --> 0:02:05.356 whether someone is telling the truth. He liked to teach 0:02:05.396 --> 0:02:08.596 by way of experiment, and on this particular evening he 0:02:08.636 --> 0:02:12.596 was conduct getting experiment on what eyewitnesses can actually notice 0:02:13.116 --> 0:02:18.996 and remember. It seems to be a regrettable fact that 0:02:19.116 --> 0:02:23.956 little systematic psychological experimentation is being carried on in the 0:02:23.996 --> 0:02:31.516 field of testimony. Much valuable material is being produced by psychiatrists, sociologists, 0:02:31.556 --> 0:02:34.836 and criminologists from time to time, but the subjects of 0:02:34.956 --> 0:02:41.316 such studies either psychopathic or criminal variants from the criminal 0:02:41.476 --> 0:02:49.476 variants enter yes. In the middle of Marston's lecture, a 0:02:49.596 --> 0:02:53.556 young man entered the hall. He wore leather gloves. In 0:02:53.556 --> 0:02:56.956 his right hand, he carried an envelope. Tucked under his 0:02:57.036 --> 0:03:02.396 left arm were three books, one red, one green, one blue. 0:03:02.916 --> 0:03:05.636 I've read Marston's lecture, and I've read his report on 0:03:05.676 --> 0:03:11.996 this experiment. What happened next, I like to imagine. Sorry 0:03:12.036 --> 0:03:16.196 to interrupts, sir, but here the messenger handed the professor 0:03:16.276 --> 0:03:20.836 the envelope. Professor Marston opened the envelope, pulled out a 0:03:20.916 --> 0:03:26.156 yellow paper, and read its contents. While Professor Marston was 0:03:26.236 --> 0:03:30.796 reading the message, the messenger slid a second envelope into 0:03:30.836 --> 0:03:36.436 Professor Marston's pocket, and then the messenger, using only his 0:03:36.556 --> 0:03:39.556 right hand, pulled out of his own pocket a long, 0:03:39.836 --> 0:03:44.676 green handled knife. The messenger opened a knife and began 0:03:44.756 --> 0:03:48.596 scraping his gloved left thumb with the edge of the blade, 0:03:49.276 --> 0:03:54.596 sharpening it on the leather. Yeah, that'll do anyway, Yes, sir, 0:04:05.316 --> 0:04:15.276 stood as that man was an actor, an experiment. Take 0:04:15.316 --> 0:04:18.516 out a fresh sheet of notepaper, this very instant, and 0:04:18.556 --> 0:04:22.396 write down every fact about what just occurred, every last detail, 0:04:22.516 --> 0:04:29.436 no matter how seemingly insignificant. You have one minute, my 0:04:29.596 --> 0:04:33.316 dear listeners. These people are actors, and this too has 0:04:33.396 --> 0:04:37.756 been asharade an experiment. Please, now, this very instant. Tell 0:04:37.796 --> 0:04:46.676 me what you just heard. Is that all you can remember? 0:04:46.916 --> 0:04:50.516 All the details? Let me see if you left anything out? 0:04:51.156 --> 0:04:55.476 What university are we at, in what year? What time 0:04:55.516 --> 0:04:57.916 of days it? What part of the country was the 0:04:58.076 --> 0:05:04.316 messenger from? What color was his knife? Time? Put down 0:05:04.356 --> 0:05:06.916 your pencils, pass your paper to the front of the room. 0:05:11.076 --> 0:05:15.516 All right. Marriston had identified exactly one hundred and forty 0:05:15.516 --> 0:05:18.916 seven facts that the students could have observed about the messenger, 0:05:19.636 --> 0:05:22.316 the number and the color of the books, the fact 0:05:22.396 --> 0:05:24.796 that he held them under one arm is left. The 0:05:24.876 --> 0:05:28.396 color of the paper in the first envelope yellow. And 0:05:28.476 --> 0:05:33.156 then Professor Morriston collected his student's responses and tallied the results. 0:05:35.036 --> 0:05:39.916 Out of one hundred and forty seven observable facts, the 0:05:40.036 --> 0:05:46.356 class on average noticed only thirty six, and since two 0:05:46.396 --> 0:05:49.916 of these facts were errors, I am only counting thirty four, 0:05:51.356 --> 0:05:54.356 thirty four out of one hundred and forty seven facts, 0:05:54.996 --> 0:05:59.436 for a testimonial accuracy rate of precisely twenty three percent, 0:05:59.676 --> 0:06:05.076 and not a single one of you noticed the knife. 0:06:07.836 --> 0:06:11.276 This is the last archive of the show about how 0:06:11.316 --> 0:06:14.196 we know what we know, how we used to know things, 0:06:14.676 --> 0:06:17.116 and why it seems sometimes lately as if we don't 0:06:17.116 --> 0:06:21.876 know anything at all. I'm Jill Lapour. This season we're 0:06:21.876 --> 0:06:26.316 trying to solve a crime. Who killed Truth? This episode, 0:06:26.356 --> 0:06:28.516 we're looking at a trial set in motion by the 0:06:28.596 --> 0:06:32.876 experiment Professor Marston conducted that night in nineteen twenty two, 0:06:33.636 --> 0:06:37.836 an experiment that involved a machine. A machine you've probably 0:06:37.836 --> 0:06:40.916 heard about. Did you ever hear of a lie detector? 0:06:41.316 --> 0:06:45.076 The lie detector? You probably know it from the movies. 0:06:45.996 --> 0:06:48.196 You may lie to us, you can't lie to that. 0:06:49.316 --> 0:06:52.956 The machine itself. The polygraph machine was invented by someone else, 0:06:53.236 --> 0:06:56.396 but the test, the blood pressure test, that had been 0:06:56.396 --> 0:06:59.676 invented by William Molton Marston, that professor who liked to 0:06:59.676 --> 0:07:06.956 experiment on his students. Okay, most of us are very 0:07:06.956 --> 0:07:08.996 good at telling whether or not other people are lying. 0:07:09.676 --> 0:07:14.636 Marston thought a machine could tell better. See these needles. 0:07:16.756 --> 0:07:21.756 You see the even little line this needle's making. When 0:07:21.796 --> 0:07:25.476 you tell a lie, you're post quickens, and this needle 0:07:25.636 --> 0:07:28.036 shows it on the chop. We take this sort of thing, 0:07:28.116 --> 0:07:31.196 this sort of movie scene for granted. There seems like 0:07:31.196 --> 0:07:34.316 it's all over the place, every police procedural, every episode 0:07:34.356 --> 0:07:37.956 of law and order. But when you're conducting a historical investigation, 0:07:38.116 --> 0:07:40.476 you're supposed to pause and think about the things you 0:07:40.516 --> 0:07:43.356 take for granted, Think about them until you don't take 0:07:43.396 --> 0:07:46.396 them for granted anymore, until they get weird. The way, 0:07:46.436 --> 0:07:49.716 if you think about a word like pumpernickele, after a while, 0:07:50.196 --> 0:07:58.156 it starts to sound really strange. Pumpernickele, pumpernickele, polygraph, polygraph. 0:07:58.396 --> 0:08:01.236 And once things get strange, you can ask questions about 0:08:01.276 --> 0:08:03.916 them because you can see them more clearly. So you 0:08:03.916 --> 0:08:08.156 can ask why trust a blood pressure test more than 0:08:08.196 --> 0:08:13.036 your own judgment. It used to be that only God 0:08:13.076 --> 0:08:17.396 could decide the truth of testimony. For centuries, murder trials 0:08:17.476 --> 0:08:20.796 involved the courts trying to get God to speak through 0:08:20.836 --> 0:08:24.236 the dead body. If it bled when you touched it, 0:08:24.476 --> 0:08:28.756 you were guilty. Even after trial by jury replaced this 0:08:28.796 --> 0:08:33.276 sort of thing, Trial by ordeal, This idea that the 0:08:33.396 --> 0:08:38.916 dead speak lingered in its way. The Lae detector is 0:08:38.916 --> 0:08:42.236 a kind of ordeal, except it doesn't look for guilt 0:08:42.556 --> 0:08:45.276 in the blood of the corpse. It looks for guilt 0:08:45.596 --> 0:08:49.476 in the blood of the accused. Marston described his method 0:08:49.636 --> 0:08:54.156 in his undergraduate thesis. The special problem suggested to me 0:08:54.236 --> 0:08:57.996 in the Harvard Psychological Laboratory was an investigation in the 0:08:58.076 --> 0:09:00.836 changes in blood pressure resulting from an effort to hide 0:09:00.836 --> 0:09:06.436 the truth. Marston kept refining his truthscope all through graduate 0:09:06.476 --> 0:09:09.596 school and law school, and during the First World War 0:09:10.156 --> 0:09:12.876 when he did experiments on soldiers and prisoners of war. 0:09:13.636 --> 0:09:16.476 He was seeking fame and fortune, for sure, but he 0:09:16.556 --> 0:09:19.956 also had a noble motive. When police couldn't get criminals 0:09:19.996 --> 0:09:23.436 to confess, they pretty often beat them up. They gave 0:09:23.476 --> 0:09:26.716 them what was called the third degree. Marston had the 0:09:26.756 --> 0:09:29.756 idea that if police had a lie detector, they'd stop 0:09:29.836 --> 0:09:33.076 beating people up. In nineteen twenty two, at the same time, 0:09:33.076 --> 0:09:36.636 as he was teaching an American university in Washington, Marston 0:09:36.676 --> 0:09:39.876 decided that the time had come for a real world test. 0:09:40.756 --> 0:09:43.916 He wanted to prove that his method worked. To do that, 0:09:44.236 --> 0:09:46.396 he wanted to get the results of a lie detector 0:09:46.436 --> 0:09:50.356 admitted as evidence in a criminal trial. He needed a 0:09:50.396 --> 0:09:52.756 client desperate enough to hand his fate over to an 0:09:52.836 --> 0:09:57.876 untried experiment. Inspector Clifford al Grad record of an interrogation 0:09:57.876 --> 0:10:02.876 in August twenty second, ninety what is your name? James 0:10:02.916 --> 0:10:07.316 Alfonso Frye. James Alfonso Frye would soon become the subject 0:10:07.356 --> 0:10:11.236 of another one of Professor Marston's experiments. Fry was young 0:10:11.396 --> 0:10:14.356 and unmarried. He was lean and handsome, with short hair 0:10:14.476 --> 0:10:17.276 and big ears. He'd fought in the War. He worked 0:10:17.276 --> 0:10:20.076 in a dentist's office, and he was broke. As he 0:10:20.156 --> 0:10:22.276 later wrote, I was a young man of twenty one 0:10:22.356 --> 0:10:25.676 years and penniless. The courts had to assign me a lawyer. 0:10:26.636 --> 0:10:29.396 Police had charged James Alfonso fry with the murder of 0:10:29.476 --> 0:10:32.636 doctor Robert Wade Brown, The President of the National Life 0:10:32.636 --> 0:10:38.436 Insurance Company and the richest black man in Washington. Here's 0:10:38.436 --> 0:10:41.636 what we know about the night Doctor Brown died. It 0:10:41.756 --> 0:10:45.196 was a Saturday in November nineteen twenty. Brown was hosting 0:10:45.196 --> 0:10:48.756 a party at his house celebrating his alma mater's football 0:10:48.876 --> 0:10:55.716 victory when someone knocked at his front door. Brown went 0:10:55.756 --> 0:11:01.596 to answer and was shot dead on his very doorstep. 0:11:03.756 --> 0:11:13.436 The murderer, some people said, escaped down an alley. Browne's 0:11:13.476 --> 0:11:17.516 grieving family and his company together offered a thousand dollars reward, 0:11:17.916 --> 0:11:21.396 but the investigation had come up short. Although a lot 0:11:21.436 --> 0:11:24.316 of Brown's guests witnessed the murder or at least glimpsed 0:11:24.356 --> 0:11:27.756 the murderer, it all happened so suddenly that they could 0:11:27.796 --> 0:11:31.956 remember hardly any details. Months later, the police were still 0:11:31.956 --> 0:11:34.716 searching for Doctor Brown's killer when they arrested a young 0:11:34.756 --> 0:11:38.436 black man on an unrelated robbery charge. It was Fry. 0:11:39.356 --> 0:11:41.196 He and a cousin had robbed a guy of a wallet, 0:11:41.236 --> 0:11:44.956 a ring, and a watch, a petty theft. During his 0:11:44.996 --> 0:11:47.676 trial for robbery, one witness, a man who worked at 0:11:47.716 --> 0:11:50.436 the same dentist's office as for I, told the police 0:11:50.436 --> 0:11:53.156 that Fry had confessed to him that he Fry, had 0:11:53.276 --> 0:11:56.676 killed doctor Robert Brown. And it turned out that Fry 0:11:56.716 --> 0:11:58.836 had in fact been at doctor Brown's house on the 0:11:58.916 --> 0:12:00.996 night of the murder, and that he had brought a gun, 0:12:01.516 --> 0:12:04.916 And when the police questioned Fry, he confessed to the murder. 0:12:05.636 --> 0:12:08.276 The police had to get that confession on record, so 0:12:08.316 --> 0:12:10.876 they brought him into an interrogation room where they questioned 0:12:10.956 --> 0:12:14.956 him all over again. They wouldn't have made an audio recording, 0:12:15.156 --> 0:12:18.116 this is nineteen twenty one, a little too early for that, 0:12:18.756 --> 0:12:21.036 but they made a transcript, and here in the last 0:12:21.116 --> 0:12:24.796 archive we've got a copy. You have told my colleague 0:12:24.796 --> 0:12:26.716 that you killed doctor Brown. Aw are you willing to 0:12:26.756 --> 0:12:29.396 tell me about it? Yes, sir. When I first went 0:12:29.436 --> 0:12:31.836 to doctor Brown's I had a dollar, and I asked 0:12:31.956 --> 0:12:34.036 him to give me a prescription because I had been 0:12:34.036 --> 0:12:36.476 told I had gone a rha real bad. He then 0:12:36.516 --> 0:12:38.396 said he couldn't do anything for me for a dollar. 0:12:38.516 --> 0:12:41.116 He said, don't you son of a bitches come around 0:12:41.156 --> 0:12:45.316 here with only one dollar? Fry said, then he'd left 0:12:45.356 --> 0:12:47.396 and gone to try to raise money for the medicine 0:12:47.436 --> 0:12:51.116 by pawning his pistol, a forty five automatic. No luck, 0:12:51.556 --> 0:12:53.756 so he said he went back to Brown's with his 0:12:53.796 --> 0:12:56.156 loaded gun tucked into the belt of his pants, but 0:12:56.236 --> 0:12:59.196 when he got there, he said, Brown sent him away again, 0:12:59.236 --> 0:13:01.196 told him if he didn't have the money, to get lost, 0:13:01.316 --> 0:13:03.356 and he struck me over the left eye. Did he 0:13:03.396 --> 0:13:06.396 have any weapon in his hand, No, sir. Then I 0:13:06.436 --> 0:13:08.436 took the butt of the gun and hit him, and 0:13:08.516 --> 0:13:11.196 that didn't do good, because he struck me again. I 0:13:11.316 --> 0:13:13.316 tried to run to the door, and he grabbed me again, 0:13:13.836 --> 0:13:15.556 and I told him to put his hands up, and 0:13:15.596 --> 0:13:17.676 he kept on hitting me, hitting me on the head, 0:13:18.196 --> 0:13:24.556 and then the struggle. I think my gun was fired there, 0:13:24.596 --> 0:13:29.716 just there, with that slight cautious admission, I think my 0:13:29.796 --> 0:13:35.436 gun was fired. James Fry confessed to killing Brown. But Fry, 0:13:35.596 --> 0:13:37.756 who didn't even have a dollar to pay for a prescription, 0:13:38.156 --> 0:13:42.956 couldn't afford a lawyer. Here's where doctor Marston comes in. 0:13:44.156 --> 0:13:45.956 In that course on the law of evidence, two of 0:13:45.956 --> 0:13:48.196 his young students told him about the case, and then 0:13:48.196 --> 0:13:51.396 they volunteered to take Fry's case for free, defending him 0:13:51.436 --> 0:13:54.756 against the charge of murder. First, they went to visit 0:13:54.756 --> 0:13:58.436 Fry in prison. The students, Professor Marston and his contraption, 0:13:58.956 --> 0:14:04.916 a blood pressure cuff or a sphigmo monometer. Marston hooked 0:14:04.916 --> 0:14:09.516 Fry up. Someone took a photograph. You can things in 0:14:09.516 --> 0:14:12.396 a photograph that you can't see in a transcript. In 0:14:12.476 --> 0:14:15.956 the photograph, Frye, a black man, is surrounded by white men. 0:14:16.476 --> 0:14:19.756 Professor Marston and his law students, all in dark suits. 0:14:20.036 --> 0:14:25.036 As they strapped Fry into Marston's machine. Marston grasps Fry's arm, 0:14:25.516 --> 0:14:30.716 taking readings from his body. Fry later described the experience. 0:14:32.116 --> 0:14:34.676 Several months after I had been confined in the DC jail, 0:14:35.396 --> 0:14:39.636 my attorneys came to see me, accompanying a Professor Marston. 0:14:40.676 --> 0:14:43.196 This learned doctor was later known to me as the 0:14:43.276 --> 0:14:48.116 inventor of the lie detector. He asked if I would 0:14:48.116 --> 0:14:51.396 submit to the use of this instrument to such requests, 0:14:51.396 --> 0:14:55.516 I readily agreed. He asked me several questions, none pertaining 0:14:55.516 --> 0:14:58.636 to the case. Then suddenly he launched upon several questions 0:14:58.676 --> 0:15:02.676 going into every detail of the case at the Metropolitan 0:15:02.716 --> 0:15:05.236 Courthouse one month later. This graph was supposed to be 0:15:05.316 --> 0:15:08.036 the ace in the hole for Fry's defense, and perhaps 0:15:08.116 --> 0:15:11.076 it would catapult Fessor Marston to fame as the greatest 0:15:11.156 --> 0:15:14.716 legal mind of his generation. But the judge assigned to 0:15:14.756 --> 0:15:18.516 the case, Chief Justice Walter McCoy, was famously stern, and 0:15:18.636 --> 0:15:21.876 he was miffed. This was a big murder trial and 0:15:21.956 --> 0:15:24.436 a lot of Deasey's black community had come out for it, 0:15:24.716 --> 0:15:27.236 and Marston had alerted the press about it, so there 0:15:27.236 --> 0:15:30.036 were a lot of reporters there too. Judge McCoy was 0:15:30.076 --> 0:15:33.276 no fool. He saw early in the trial the long 0:15:33.356 --> 0:15:37.396 game this Professor Marston was playing. Marston wanted to replace 0:15:37.476 --> 0:15:42.756 trial by jury with trial by light detector all rise. 0:15:43.516 --> 0:15:46.836 The prosecution called a detective who had taken Fry's confession. 0:15:46.916 --> 0:15:51.276 I call the stand detective Clifford Grant. I interrogated James 0:15:51.276 --> 0:15:55.356 Frye on August twenty second, nineteen twenty one. Detective Grant 0:15:55.396 --> 0:15:58.716 testified that Fry had confessed to him, But then Fry's 0:15:58.756 --> 0:16:02.116 lawyer Mattingly started bringing in his witnesses. I called to 0:16:02.356 --> 0:16:15.396 st James Frye could have a glass of water. Not 0:16:15.516 --> 0:16:21.956 a word of my confession was true. Fry recanted. He 0:16:21.996 --> 0:16:24.836 insisted that he hadn't killed Brown. It's going to be 0:16:24.836 --> 0:16:27.476 hard to convince a jury of this, But Marston offered 0:16:27.476 --> 0:16:30.356 to prove with his lie detector where the real truth lay. 0:16:30.956 --> 0:16:34.476 It was a slim hope Fry knew. Fry later wrote 0:16:34.916 --> 0:16:36.836 that there had been no real chance for a black 0:16:36.836 --> 0:16:39.396 man in Washington in nineteen twenty two to get a 0:16:39.436 --> 0:16:44.436 fair trial. If I am neatly dressed and can explain myself, 0:16:44.956 --> 0:16:48.676 I'm considered being a smart alec and must be guilty. 0:16:48.836 --> 0:16:52.276 If I'm dressed in overalls unable to explain the situation, 0:16:52.916 --> 0:16:56.756 then I'm considered a brute and still must be guilty. 0:17:01.156 --> 0:17:04.196 In any ordinary trial, a train of witnesses would make 0:17:04.196 --> 0:17:07.756 their statements, the guests at Brown's house, the police who 0:17:07.796 --> 0:17:10.636 investigated the crime, the people who could give evidence in 0:17:10.716 --> 0:17:15.236 support of Fry's alibi, and then the jury, twelve white 0:17:15.236 --> 0:17:19.236 men would decide who to believe. Those men would find 0:17:19.276 --> 0:17:22.996 the facts of the case an issue a verdict, but 0:17:23.196 --> 0:17:27.036 which words of Fries were true, the confession he'd given 0:17:27.036 --> 0:17:30.116 to the police or the recanting he did right there 0:17:30.156 --> 0:17:35.596 on the stand. Fry's lawyer gamely tried to follow the 0:17:35.636 --> 0:17:42.636 Marston defense plan. If your honor please, at this time, 0:17:42.876 --> 0:17:46.716 I had intended to offer in evidence the testimony of 0:17:47.356 --> 0:17:53.196 doctor William M. Marston, as an expert in deception as 0:17:53.356 --> 0:17:58.876 testimony on what testimony as to the truth or falsity 0:17:59.116 --> 0:18:02.396 of certain statements of the defendant? If your honor, please, 0:18:02.556 --> 0:18:05.756 if you object to it, I will sustain the objection. 0:18:06.956 --> 0:18:09.716 No other judge admitted the lie detector test as evidence, 0:18:10.116 --> 0:18:11.876 and Judge McCoy didn't want to be the first one 0:18:11.876 --> 0:18:14.876 to do it. He all but begged the prosecution to 0:18:14.916 --> 0:18:18.596 object to this evidence, and when they didn't, he began 0:18:18.636 --> 0:18:22.396 objecting himself. The witnesses here on the stand, and it 0:18:22.476 --> 0:18:24.676 is for the jury to determine whether or not he 0:18:24.796 --> 0:18:29.236 was telling the truth. That is very true, your honor. 0:18:29.916 --> 0:18:35.196 But as expert testimony, is not this proper as competent 0:18:35.276 --> 0:18:38.756 evidence to go before the jury to ascertain what doctor 0:18:38.796 --> 0:18:42.876 Marston's opinion is at this time? Oh well, we get 0:18:42.916 --> 0:18:46.756 to be more or less experts ourselves, and so do 0:18:46.836 --> 0:18:49.956 the jury upon the question of whether anybody is telling 0:18:49.996 --> 0:18:52.716 the truth or not. That is what the jury is for. 0:18:55.596 --> 0:18:59.116 That is what the jury is for. It had taken 0:18:59.196 --> 0:19:02.956 centuries for ordinary people, even if only still men, white men, 0:19:03.556 --> 0:19:05.316 to gain the right to serve as jurors of the 0:19:05.356 --> 0:19:08.476 guilt or innocence of their peers. But in the early 0:19:08.516 --> 0:19:11.876 decades of the twentieth century, a lot of scientists calling 0:19:11.916 --> 0:19:14.796 themselves experts. I thought they knew quite a bit more 0:19:14.836 --> 0:19:18.876 than jurors, that they had tools, methods, even machines that 0:19:18.916 --> 0:19:22.516 could find out the truth. Judge McCoy was smart enough 0:19:22.556 --> 0:19:25.436 to see the size of William Marston's ambition, and he 0:19:25.556 --> 0:19:28.756 was determined to foil it. When the next witness came 0:19:28.796 --> 0:19:32.716 to the stand, Mattingly again approached the bench, he had 0:19:32.716 --> 0:19:37.236 another proposition. I love this part, the jousting, the little duel, 0:19:38.036 --> 0:19:42.236 but Mattingly was wildly outmatched. If your honor, please, before 0:19:42.276 --> 0:19:46.756 this witness begins to testify, may I inquire whether your 0:19:46.756 --> 0:19:50.436 honor would permit a systolic blood pressure test to be 0:19:50.556 --> 0:19:53.916 taken during an examination of the witness on the stand. 0:19:54.356 --> 0:19:57.676 If we are going to have a cystolic test, we 0:19:57.756 --> 0:20:00.996 all have to test every witness who testifies in the case. 0:20:01.756 --> 0:20:04.036 If there is any science about it, we might as 0:20:04.036 --> 0:20:07.476 well apply the science to every witness. Mind you, I 0:20:07.556 --> 0:20:10.396 do not know anything about the test at all. I 0:20:10.476 --> 0:20:13.916 had certain pamphlets submitted to me yesterday to look at. 0:20:13.956 --> 0:20:17.876 Of some doctor Marston. I believe his thesis when he 0:20:17.956 --> 0:20:21.476 got his PhD degree I'm going to read them when 0:20:21.516 --> 0:20:25.436 I come back from my vacation. I see enough in 0:20:25.476 --> 0:20:28.476 them to know that so far the science has not 0:20:28.556 --> 0:20:32.436 sufficiently developed detection of deception by blood pressure to make 0:20:32.476 --> 0:20:35.996 it a usable instrument in a chord of law. When 0:20:35.996 --> 0:20:39.196 it is developed to the perfection of the telephone on 0:20:39.276 --> 0:20:42.916 the telegraph and wireless and a few other things, we 0:20:42.956 --> 0:20:47.756 will consider it. I shall be dead by that time, probably, 0:20:48.356 --> 0:20:54.516 and it will bother some other judge, not me. Jed 0:20:54.636 --> 0:20:58.956 McCoy was a piece of work. After that, Mattingly bumbled 0:20:58.956 --> 0:21:01.756 along for a little while before concluding, and then the 0:21:01.796 --> 0:21:07.676 prosecution delivered its closing words. James Fry is the most 0:21:07.756 --> 0:21:11.876 colossal liar that ever appeared in court. I rest my case. 0:21:13.156 --> 0:21:15.956 The jury deliberated for less than an hour and found 0:21:16.036 --> 0:21:21.596 James Fry guilty of second degree murder. Judge McCoy sentenced 0:21:21.676 --> 0:21:24.716 him to life in prison, and Fry went by train 0:21:25.236 --> 0:21:28.396 to Leavenworth. He was supposed to spend the rest of 0:21:28.436 --> 0:21:53.836 his days in jail. Professor Marston was conducting an experiment, 0:21:54.716 --> 0:21:57.316 but it's not an accident that his test subject was 0:21:57.316 --> 0:22:01.236 a penniless black man accused of murder. Marston became a 0:22:01.276 --> 0:22:04.556 psychologist at a time when social scientists of every stripe 0:22:04.756 --> 0:22:07.556 were expected to try and solve what was called the 0:22:07.676 --> 0:22:11.676 Negro problem. What that problem was shifted all the time, 0:22:12.276 --> 0:22:15.156 but never the commitment to the notion that facts alone 0:22:15.196 --> 0:22:19.796 couldn't solve the Negro problem. Only numbers could. Social scientists 0:22:19.916 --> 0:22:23.436 counted everything they measured, the circumference of the skull, the 0:22:23.556 --> 0:22:26.756 length of a life, the density of a neighborhood, the 0:22:26.796 --> 0:22:30.876 pressure of blood. Nearly a century after the Fry Trial, 0:22:31.436 --> 0:22:33.796 historians still spend a lot of time looking back at 0:22:33.796 --> 0:22:38.196 this moment, the period from about eighteen ninety to nineteen thirty. 0:22:39.036 --> 0:22:40.716 Some of the best work in this field is done 0:22:40.716 --> 0:22:45.556 by a colleague of mine, Khalil Gibran Mohammed, Professor of History, Race, 0:22:45.556 --> 0:22:49.756 and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. The first 0:22:49.796 --> 0:22:52.156 time I met him was at an academic conference with 0:22:52.236 --> 0:22:56.156 a one word title, Numbers. Were both really interested in 0:22:56.276 --> 0:22:59.676 numbers and why people count things, what kind of knowledge 0:22:59.836 --> 0:23:02.956 numbers add up to, and what they subtract. One of 0:23:02.996 --> 0:23:05.796 the most amazing things about the late nineteenth century looking 0:23:05.836 --> 0:23:08.796 at that kind of local and national data is added 0:23:08.836 --> 0:23:11.996 looked today like an Excel spreadsheet printed out and folded 0:23:12.076 --> 0:23:15.556 many many times over. A lot of Khalimahamma's work focuses 0:23:15.596 --> 0:23:20.396 on how after the Civil War, after emancipation, sociologists and 0:23:20.516 --> 0:23:25.676 government agencies collected statistics on black crime to argue that 0:23:25.716 --> 0:23:29.116 black people were by their very nature criminal, that they 0:23:29.156 --> 0:23:32.316 were genetically not fit for their freedom, and so had 0:23:32.356 --> 0:23:36.836 to be watched and studied endlessly. You could almost think 0:23:36.876 --> 0:23:40.596 of it like a person who is in rehab, and 0:23:40.876 --> 0:23:44.916 you develop certain protocols to keep track of their progress. 0:23:45.596 --> 0:23:47.676 How many meals, how many hours do they sleep, what 0:23:47.756 --> 0:23:50.396 are the signs of a healthy lifestyle. Whereas you wouldn't 0:23:50.396 --> 0:23:51.916 do this for a normal person, You wouldn't keep a 0:23:51.956 --> 0:23:55.116 ledger of such things. And so, to use this metaphor, 0:23:55.196 --> 0:23:57.796 it was that ledger keeping of African Americans that was 0:23:57.836 --> 0:24:01.196 a reflection of those same progressives thinking black people are 0:24:01.236 --> 0:24:04.676 not still fully ready for full participation, so we'll keep 0:24:04.676 --> 0:24:06.556 an eye on this crime thing. Well, the truth is, 0:24:06.556 --> 0:24:08.396 we live in the wake of all these ideas. They're 0:24:08.436 --> 0:24:11.676 baked in to our consciousness already, so we know what 0:24:11.756 --> 0:24:14.116 to make of it. We can either make of it 0:24:14.236 --> 0:24:18.156 that black people have a crime problem, or that black 0:24:18.156 --> 0:24:22.316 people are subject to systematic racism and system or we 0:24:22.396 --> 0:24:26.036 might say some mixture of boat. These ideas we live 0:24:26.076 --> 0:24:28.996 in that are already in our consciousness, A lot of 0:24:28.996 --> 0:24:31.756 them go back to a man named Frederick Hoffman. In 0:24:31.796 --> 0:24:35.196 eighteen ninety six, he published a book called Race Traits 0:24:35.236 --> 0:24:39.236 and Tendencies of the American Negro. Hoffman wanted to argue 0:24:39.276 --> 0:24:42.836 that Blacks were inferior. Up until then, those arguments had 0:24:42.836 --> 0:24:46.396 been based on racial pseudoscience, measuring skull sizes or some 0:24:46.436 --> 0:24:50.916 other physical differences. Hoffman was pretty innovative and shifting that 0:24:50.996 --> 0:24:54.716 gaze to crime statistics, and from that point forward, the 0:24:54.796 --> 0:25:00.356 framework that he used that the disproportionate evidence of black 0:25:00.396 --> 0:25:05.076 people being in prison was was on its own, with 0:25:05.196 --> 0:25:10.156 no further analysis, no footnotes, no asterisks. The best proof 0:25:10.476 --> 0:25:14.116 that black people were inferior to people of European descent. 0:25:14.676 --> 0:25:20.196 Police discrimination and brutality didn't matter, rates of conviction mattered, 0:25:20.836 --> 0:25:24.036 other factors, and the culture just soaks it up like 0:25:24.076 --> 0:25:29.996 a sponge. Yeah, and it still does. Professor William Moulton Marston. 0:25:30.396 --> 0:25:33.116 He wanted to turn James Frye into a set of numbers. 0:25:33.396 --> 0:25:35.676 The numbers on the graph paper from his lie detector 0:25:35.716 --> 0:25:39.036 test Marston wanted to turn Fry into a number, not 0:25:39.076 --> 0:25:41.356 to prove that he was a criminal, but to prove 0:25:41.396 --> 0:25:45.036 that he wasn't. And maybe I should admit here, I 0:25:45.076 --> 0:25:47.436 don't know whether James Frye was guilty or not. He 0:25:47.516 --> 0:25:49.516 was at the scene of the crime, he had a motive, 0:25:49.676 --> 0:25:53.156 he had a weapon, and he confessed. So it looks 0:25:53.156 --> 0:25:56.836 pretty bad. But then again, Marston had a lot on 0:25:56.876 --> 0:25:59.756 the line, and he was pretty sure that Fry was innocent. 0:26:01.916 --> 0:26:04.116 I might not be sure whether fry was guilty or not, 0:26:04.636 --> 0:26:08.996 but I'm pretty sure Marston ever expected to get fry acquitted. Instead, 0:26:09.276 --> 0:26:11.436 he was hoping to take Fry's case all the way 0:26:11.476 --> 0:26:14.516 to the Supreme Court to demonstrate the merit of his invention. 0:26:15.516 --> 0:26:18.756 Marston dreamed of convincing the nation's highest court that his 0:26:18.876 --> 0:26:22.396 machine could tell better than any jury who was telling 0:26:22.396 --> 0:26:28.876 the truth. Men come to judge this question by certain 0:26:28.996 --> 0:26:32.316 arbitrary standards in the course of their dealings with others. 0:26:33.676 --> 0:26:36.436 After for I went to prison, Marston helped to student 0:26:36.516 --> 0:26:39.316 lawyers file an appeal. Or to be honest, I'm pretty 0:26:39.316 --> 0:26:42.756 sure Marston just wrote the brief himself. It asked, how 0:26:42.796 --> 0:26:45.556 does the court tell whether or not someone is lying. 0:26:47.436 --> 0:26:49.956 The decision may hinge upon the look in the eyes, 0:26:50.236 --> 0:26:53.796 the expression on the face, the nervous condition of the witness, 0:26:53.836 --> 0:26:57.996 the rosy flush which suffuses his countenance, or upon any 0:26:57.996 --> 0:27:00.596 one of many other evidences which may or may not 0:27:00.676 --> 0:27:03.836 be taken to indicate truth or deception. We say that 0:27:03.876 --> 0:27:07.596 there is no standard and no logical or reasonable basis 0:27:07.596 --> 0:27:09.916 for the determination of this question in general, in the 0:27:09.956 --> 0:27:13.436 absence of positive evidence of deception, and that if science 0:27:13.636 --> 0:27:17.116 has developed a method of accurately determining whether a man 0:27:17.236 --> 0:27:20.036