VT- Judge rejected polygraph test for convicted rapist

8-12-2008 Vermont:

Convicted rapist Michael Jacques agreed to submit to lie detector tests as a condition of his probation in 2002, but Judge Amy Davenport vetoed the idea, according to a review of court records.

“While this court has no objection to probationers voluntarily submitting to a lie detector test, this is not appropriate as a condition of probation,” Davenport, now the administrative judge for the state courts, wrote in a May 15, 2002 order in the Jacques case.

Davenport is the same judge who later decided to shorten Jacques’ time on probation by seven years after hearing how Jacques was a sex offender rehabilitation “success story.”

Police investigating the recent slaying of Jacques’ niece, 12-year-old Brooke Bennett of Braintree, claimed they discovered evidence that Jacques was engaging in sexual acts with another pre-teen female relative at a time when he was still on probation.

Jacques is now facing federal charges that he kidnapped Brooke on June 25. Her body was found a week later a mile from Jacques’ home after a massive police search and the triggering of the state’s first-ever Amber Alert.

Davenport, in an interview, defended her ruling on the lie detector test probation amendment request. Corrections officials say such tests have been helpful in monitoring sex offenders and deterring them from repeating their sexual misconduct.

“My entry order does not say it wasn’t necessary,” she said of the lie detector condition.

Davenport said she did not remember the ruling until she reviewed paperwork from the file. No hearing on the lie detector proposal was held before she issued her 2002 decision.

Davenport said the standard menu of probation conditions in 2002 did not include one about polygraphs and she felt that mandating such a condition — even with the agreement of the probationer — would exceed her authority as a judge under the law.

“There were 16 conditions I could order,” she said. “The law had nothing to say about lie detectors.” She acknowledged, however, that the law allowed a judge to tack on conditions for an offender that are “reasonably related to his rehabilitation.”

The Corrections Department’s push to polygraph high-risk sex offenders began as a pilot program in Addison County in the 1990s and was not yet statewide in 2002.

Davenport said she would not discuss any details of the Jacques rape case or her later ruling that shortened Jacques’ probation period.

According to police affidavits from the rape case, Jacques violently raped a West Rutland high school senior in 1992 and at one point threatened to kill her. Other court records show he previously engaged in repeated sexual acts with a female relative for years while growing up in Randolph.

In a Corrections Department review of the Jacques case released last week, a district manager for the state’s probation office in White River Junction filed a motion with Vermont District Court in Chelsea on April 23, 2002 asking to amend Jacques’ probation conditions.

“You shall participate in a polygraph examination to determine your compliance with treatment and supervision conditions since being placed on probation,” the proposed amendment said.

The department review noted that a judge denied the request but did not identify the judge by name because the signature on the form was illegible. Court officials and Davenport confirmed Monday the signature was Davenport’s.

The identity of the judge was not the focus of the Corrections Department review and was therefore not pursued, Corrections Commissioner Rob Hofmann said.

“My goal was not to critique others involved in the process,” Hofmann said. The review was done to analyze how the department handled the Jacques case and determine what reforms are needed in sex offender laws.

The court file also contains a Waiver of Rights to Contest amendment form signed by Michael Jacques, agreeing to let his probation conditions be expanded to allow the lie detector tests.

“As I understand it, he was willing to do it,” Hofmann said, referring to Jacques.

Today, the polygraph concept is seen as an accepted way to monitor sex offenders. Hoffman said his department expects nearly a lie detector test a day will be conducted on a convicted sex offender in the state over the next three months.

Steve Hoke, a probation district manager in Middlebury, said during the polygraph program’s start-up phase he could remember only one time when a judge voiced reluctance about adding a lie detector test to the list of probation conditions for a sex offender.

“The judge said he wanted a hearing to make sure the offender agreed to this,” Hoke said.

Hoke said a telephone conference with the parties in the case was arranged and the judge subsequently agreed to add the polygraph condition. ..News Source.. by Sam Hemingway