Dad Passes the Polygraph

By mid July I was back to seeing social workers again. I dreaded the week that I had to go through this but I knew it was something I had to do in order to keep Julian in the end. My heart sank at the thought of Betty Rose telling me once again I wasn't his mother. Yet, I still was hopeful that this months visit she would have some new information that would make this visit her last visit. I hoped for a major change in the case or any information that would make my husband and I feel more confident that the case would quickly come to an end. However, the month of July did not give us that relief.

When Betty Rose came to our home she began by telling us that bio dad passed a polygraph test saying he didn't cause the injuries. She also mentioned that mom couldn't take her polygraph test until the baby she was pregnant with was born because a polygraph reads off of heartbeats and it would give a false reading with the babies heart beat as well. When I asked her what that meant for Julian's case she never had an answer. It was always well we need to wait and see what "mom's" results are. I found it so strange that so much of the case revolved around polygraph tests because in criminal court polygraph tests are hardly ever used as evidence. In the 1998 Supreme Court case, United States v. Scheffer, the majority stated that “There is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable.” If the Supreme Court ruled this way then why the hell were we putting our resources in this? The truth is a polygraph can easily give a false reading if the questions are asked incorrectly or I don't know they are asked in English then translated to Spanish! This is what happened with the bios. The questions were asked in English to a Spanish translator that then asked the bios the questions in Spanish. Or the results can give a false reading if the person taking the polygraph is a professional liar. What ever the reason, usually the courts don't allow polygraph results into evidence.

Needless to say, I was confused and angered by the fact that it was so important for all the adults in this case to take a polygraph test if they weren't admissible in court. And each time one of these adults, that were in Julian's life, took a test and the results came in it seemed almost like useless information to Betty Rose. She never had an opinion on it. The police never made an arrest based on the information. Yet Betty Rose always found it important to tell us what the results were and when I asked what that meant for the case..she would say," Well we just have to wait and see." Wait and see....this was suppose to be a quick case and here we are 3 months into it and nothing has changed. We were sitting there having the same conversation we had the last two months. Where was the break down?

Betty Rose was probably one of the most frustrating people I have ever met. Each time she came to our home I hoped she would show me a different side of her. A side of compassion and gratitude for my husband and I. But instead every time she was there she broke our hearts just a little bit more. Even when she thought she was giving us news we would want to hear. Like supervised visitation wasn't going well. That should be a point for us, the good guys, right? Instead she told this story.

"The last visit didn't go very well. Mom and Dad are still overstimulating Julian in the visit. So much so that he became hysterical from having rattles and toys shaken in face for 30 minutes. He was crying and they kept shaking toys in his face instead of figuring out ways to sooth him. I had to make each of them stand on separate sides of the room and alternate holding him. When he finally calmed down he fell asleep for the rest of the visit." The room went silent after her story. I must have been looking at her like I saw aliens coming out of her head because she then made eye ontact and said "What?" My heart sank as she told this story. Were my husband and I the only two in the case that saw it was a problem for Julian to cry for 30 minutes about over stimulation? And had it occurred to her she also didn't mention they had tried to feed him that visit.

As I tried to gather my thoughts and clean up my language before I spoke to her, I felt my little man in my lap. Was it worth even bringing any of my concerns up to her? Would she listen? I kissed Julian's little head and took a deep breath.