McCain v. Sheridan

DRAPER, J.

Petitioner (termed “plaintiff” in his petition for writ of mandate) had been a police officer of the city of Richmond for 14 years, and in 1956 held the rank of sergeant. He was assigned to the records division of the department May 6, 1956. Among the duties of that division was the receipt of cash bail. On May 14 it developed that $263 cash bail, received May 5 and presumably placed in the cash drawer on that day, was missing. On May 18 a like amount was found to be missing. The $526 shortage was the subject of newspaper stories. Seventeen employees of the police department were assigned to the records division and had access to the cash drawer where bail money was kept. By petition to the police chief dated May 21, signed by all 17, these employees referred to the “adverse publicity,” stated their belief “that we are all equally suspected of appropriating the missing funds,” and concluded by “strongly urging that a full scale investigation, including the use of the latest scientific aids, be employed at once in an earnest effort to establish the innocence, or guilt, of each of the undersigned ...”

Petitioner was the third signer of this document. Although he testified that he did not know what the petition was when he signed it, he conceded that on the same afternoon he signed, he presented the petition to the officer whose signature is the fifth upon the document, and told that officer that the petition was a request that the signers be given a lie detector test. Upon receipt of the petition, the chief arranged with an

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expert, not connected with the department, for the giving of the test, and ordered that the signers take it. Petitioner reported for his first polygraph (lie detector) test June 11. A second test was ordered for petitioner and several others on Jiune 16. In this test, the machine was set up, the necessary attachments to the person of petitioner were made, and he was told that seven cards, each hearing a number visible to him but not to the examiner, would be shown to him. He was to choose one card, and the machine would show whether his statement of the number he chose was correct. He was also told that some people are not sufficiently responsive for polygraph testing, and that if he proved to be one of these, further testing would not be effective. In fact, this “test” was a trick. The cards were so arranged that the examiner could tell, without observing the faces of the cards, what number had been chosen by petitioner. The intent was to find whether, in an attempt to evade further testing, petitioner would falsify the number he had in fact chosen. The examiner testified that petitioner did so falsify. When informed of this result, petitioner removed the equipment attached to his arm, and, when the examiner spoke of further testing, petitioner asked to leave, and refused to submit to any further test. Later, the police chief ordered petitioner to complete the polygraph test, and offered to arrange such a test by another examiner. Petitioner refused, and said he would have absolutely nothing more to do with a lie detector.