CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SACRAMENTO : State Power Over Polygraphers to End

A little-noticed veto by Gov. George Deukmejian will end the state’s authority over lie detector experts beginning Jan. 1 and end a 5-year-old program. On that date, the Board of Polygraph Examiners will formally go out of existence, removing California’s roughly 350 licensed lie detector examiners from state regulation. Under current law, the people who administer polygraph, or lie detector, tests are required to attend an eight-week course, then obtain a temporary or “intern” license and conduct at least 100 polygraph tests before taking the state’s polygraph licensing exam. An applicant who passes the exam receives a general, permanent license subject to renewal.