The New York Times reported that New Haven police arrested Yale lab technician Raymond Clark III early this morning, charging him with kill in the death of Yale graduate student Annie Le. Bail was situation at $3 million. Raymond Clark is expected to be arraigned on the assassinate charge within 24 hours.
Police provided little new detail about the murder of Annie Le other than to clarify that her previously released cause of death “asphyxiation” was the result of strangulation in an incident police called “workplace violence.”
According to the Hartford Courant, the arrest warrant for the lab technician Raymond Clark III was signed at 8:15 am, but was sealed by the court.
This issuance of this morning’s arrest warrant and the subsequent arrest of lab technician Raymond Clark III for strangling Yale student Annie Le resulted from a match of Clark’s DNA with DNA found at the scene of the abolish, the New York Times said. The Courant also cited computer records showing that Clark was the last person to see Le alive.
According to the Courant, the computer records showing the lab technician’s movements throughout the lab on the day Annie Le was starngled were the key that focused police attention on him and ultimately led to Raymond Clark’s arrest. Records of door entry card swipes showed Clark and Le present in the same lab shortly after 10 am. While her card was never used again, Clark’s showed considerable later activity including entry into areas the lab technician did not frequent. Card swipe evidence demonstrates Clark’s presence in the area that Le’s body was found on the day of her murder.
Before he was arrested for strangling Annie Le, Raymond Clark III reportedly took and failed a polygraph test.
But it is not the polygraph, rather the DNA testing and the computer records of the arrested lab technician’s travels through the Yale laboratory rooms on the day of Annie Le’s slay that will undoubtedly be the cornerstone of the prosecution’s case. Although Clark flunked a polygraph exam, polygraph evidence is not considered satisfactory by the Region of Connecticut judicial system and will not be admitted at trial.
The National Academy of Sciences issued a report highly critical of polygraph examination in 2002, which concluded “Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy.” The NAS also stated that there was diminutive hope for significant improvement in polygraph technique and interpretation.
The exercise of polygraph evidence has long been controversial. In Federal courts, its utilize is discretionary.
Some proponents of using polygraph, or lie detector, tests in courts assert that juries should be able to weigh their reliability just the same as they weigh the reliability of other science-based evidence like DNA and blood testing. Unlike DNA and blood tests which are widely supported as reliable by the scientific community, the polygraph is considered lacking in sufficient scientific underpinnings to be considered reliable by scientists themselves.
Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/nyregion/18yale.html; http://www.courant.com/news/breaking/hc-raymond-clark-arrest-annie-le-yale-b,0,7442776.story; http://privacy08.com/privacy/polygraph/; http://www.thepolygraphexaminer.com/polygraph_laws.htm; http://search.cga.ct.gov/dtsearch.asp? cmd=getdoc&DocId=16414&Index=I%3A\zindex\2000&HitCount=0&hits=&hc=0&req=&Item=592; www.tamaraholder.com/0mu_online15/linkers/107.doc.
Children and Parents - Religious Fights Over Medical Rights
