Appeal Letter for Employment

¶ … Sir:

I feel I must tell you that I was quite shocked and dismayed when I was notified of your decision to disqualify me for the position of deputy sheriff due to the use of alleged countermeasures during the lie detector testing. First, I would like to vehemently deny that I knowingly engaged in any activity designed to explicitly deceive the lie detector or the person operating it. Since it is alleged that I engaged in some countermeasures, I feel it is safe to assume that I passed the lie detector with no false statements as I have during a previous test. That is due to the fact that I answered every question asked of me as honestly as I could. If there is any question about this, I would think that I would be permitted to take the exam again, but I am being informed that I cannot do so. I feel this is a grave injustice being perpetrated upon me since I am aware of others who were permitted to take a re-test. If I am being judged as a cheater, I would think that the Sheriff's Department would afford me the opportunity to defend myself against such charges and that is what I am asking you to do now.

I would like to point out that, if the lie detector is an instrument upon which you base a great deal of reliability, it seems that someone like myself, with no training and no real understanding of the inner workings of the lie detector machine, can beat the machine without even trying it may not be the best method for use in your investigations. We are all aware that lie detector test results are inadmissible in court because of their unreliable nature and their inability to accurately determine truth. Although I am well aware that while the lie detector is a valuable tool for possibly coaxing a confession out of a suspect, the results of such a test should never be completely trusted. I think the same standard that applies to interrogations of suspects should also apply to job applicants.

Furthermore, the Sheriff's Department seems to believe that not only are lie detectors notoriously easy to fool, the knowledge necessary to deceive them is also widely disseminated. There appear to be a plethora of methods available and easily applied that will throw the results completely off track. If we assume that this is in fact true, then it is indeed time to retire this method of lie detection. If they can be so easily deceived and many people know how to do so, why are we still using them? Moreover, why use this to try to cull applicants from the pool of potential employees.