Utah could soon ban government officials from asking alleged sexual assault victims to undergo a polygraph test — joining a growing list of states that bar the practice.
Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, said she has introduced legislation banning polygraph tests in hopes that it will remove a barrier that could prevent someone from reporting they were sexually abused. Experts says that polygraph tests are known to be specifically unreliable with victims of sexual abuse, and other states have banned them for that reason.
“Polygraph tests can sometimes be misunderstood and be considered like a lie detector test, and victims feel like they’re not believed,” Romero said. “Around the country, people are starting to see that this is probably not the best way in which to interview the victim of sexual assault.”
It’s not clear how often Utah law enforcement officials or other government employees have asked alleged sexual assault victims to take polygraph tests. But a recent investigation from The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica showed the damaging effects a polygraph test had on one Utahn who reported to state licensers that his therapist had touched him inappropriately during sessions.
The man — identified in previous reporting under the pseudonym Andrew — reported his therapist, Scott Owen, to the Division of Professional Licensing in 2016. Licensing officials have said that they offered a polygraph test to both Owen and Andrew. The therapist denied Andrew’s accusations, and refused to take the test.
Andrew recalled in an interview that the DOPL investigator reasoned to him that if he could pass a polygraph test, it would bolster what essentially was one person’s word against the other. But the polygraph results, Andrew said, suggested he was being deceptive.
“I had so much trauma,” Andrew said. “And so, certainly, when they asked me questions about the particular things that happened in therapy, it’s going to elicit a very strong emotional response.”
This is a common response for trauma victims, researchers say — and many recommend that sexual abuse victims not undergo polygraph exams.
Andrew’s polygraph result sent his own mental health spiraling, he said, and he told an investigator that he no longer wanted to pursue his complaint against Owen. As part of a 2016 public reprimand, Owen admitted that he gave Andrew hugs — touching which he admitted was inappropriate, but “non-sexual.” (Andrew had reported to licensers that Owen groped him, encouraged him to undress and kissed him during sessions.) Owen eventually gave up his mental health counselor license in 2018 — nearly two years after Andrew’s report —after at least two other patients made similar complaints to DOPL.
Provo police began investigating Owen after The Tribune and ProPublica released an August investigation which detailed a range of sexual assault allegations from Andrew and three other men. Police arrested the ex-therapist in November, and he now faces nearly a dozen felonies for allegedly sexually abusing several patients during therapy.
Officials with DOPL say that, given the evidence they had from Andrew’s complaint, they believe they responded appropriately. But, communications between Andrew and an investigator suggest that the agency’s actions rested largely on Owen’s denial that anything improper had happened and Andrew’s polygraph results.
Half of states have laws which explicitly prohibit law enforcement from conducting a polygraph test with someone reporting a sexual assault, with some barring any government employee from requiring an alleged sexual assault victim to take one.
There’s no law in Utah that puts limits on the use of polygraph tests on victims — which Romero hopes to change. The House Minority Leader’s bill would prohibit law enforcement, prosecutors or any government official from requesting or compelling an alleged victim to submit to a polygraph exam during the course of a criminal investigation or prosecution. Romero’s bill has yet to receive its first committee hearing.
“We want to make sure that people are actually reporting sexual assault,” Romero said. “In Utah, like many other states, we don’t do a good job of prosecuting perpetrators — and many of those perpetrators are serial offenders. I want to make sure that with sexual assault victims, we’re letting them know that they’re believed.”
