Finding Aid for the Felix N. Capili Notes on Lie Detection and Criminal Interrogation Biomed.0701

Contributing Institution: UCLA Library Special Collections

Title: Felix N. Capili notes on lie detection and criminal interrogation

Creator: Capili, Felix N.

source: B & L Rootenberg Fine & Rare Books

Identifier/Call Number: Biomed.0701

Physical Description: 1 unknown (1 manuscript)

Date: 1954

Physical Location: Held at UCLA Library Special Collections. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Language of Material: Materials are in English.

Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Purchased from B & L Rootenberg Fine & Rare Books, 2016.

UCLA Catalog Record ID: 8070260 

[Identification of item], Felix N. Capili notes on lie detection and criminal interrogation (Collection 701). Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections for the Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles.

Detective Felix N. Capili (1926-2010) of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department first details the history and development of the polygraph, and sets forth instructions for its use. "Significant are the number of cases described and how suspects reacted to testing. The illustrations demonstrate physiological factors and responses detected in test readings, and references polygraph results from actual criminal cases. The second section lays out the various psychological principles of questioning, especially with different types of offenders, discusses profiling, and describes specific tactics to use in various circumstances, such as appealing to the suspect's pride, the futility of resistance, condemning the victim, use of exaggeration, and of course the 'good cop/bad cop' method. There are sections on the ethics of interrogation, as well as a discussion of incriminating statements, a suspect's constitutional rights, and confessions in court. Capili references many Supreme Court cases and the effects of those decisions on interrogation procedures. The polygraph had been invented as an interrogation tool in the late nineteenth century, and became more widely used following the techniques described by Fred Inbau and John E. Reid in the landmark Lie detection and criminal interrogation (1942, revised in 1948 and 1953). In this treatise, Det. Capili ... has created a document for training others in crime solving through detection of truth and deception as well as the best method of extracting confessions from evildoers. He here references many specific supreme court cases and the effects of those decisions on interrogation procedures."

The manuscript is typewritten on thin paper. There are handwritten annotations and underlining throughout. Several photographs of polygraph records are pasted-in and labeled, along with an annotated plate, from a published source, annotated by hand.

Source: Antiquarian bookseller's description, 2016.

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