The Closing of the Coffin on Forensic Polygraph Evidence for Australia: Mallard v The Queen [2003] WASCA 296
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Polygraphy has a chequered and colourful history. In New South Wales its use in criminal investigations was outlawed by the Lie Detectors Act 1983 (NSW) after an attempt to introduce such evidence in a District Court proceeding. Decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada have rejected such evidence. However, two events in 2003 will prove of more long-term significance. An in-depth National Research Council Report classified those studies which suggested that it is reliable as seriously flawed and recommended extensive independent research before its use should be sanctioned, even in employment contexts. In late 2003 the Western Australian Court of Appeal heard extensive evidence from international leaders in the debates about the status of contemporary polygraphy. In an extensive decision, Mallard v The Queen [2003] WASCA 296 the court robustly ruled against the admissibility of polygraphy. This is likely to close the lid on arguments for the foreseeable future about the use of the technique in Australian courts.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.027 | 0.062 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.016 | 0.013 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.011 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.009 |
| Research integrity | 0.053 | 0.041 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".