Verified by 
Miller's Law
George Miller, a Princeton professor and respected psychologist, formulated the golden rule of communication. Miller's Law states, "To understand what another person is saying, you must first assume what the person said is true and then try to imagine what it could be true of." Practiced liars routinely use Miller's Law to create the illusion of truth, but the truth about what?
My oldest son demonstrated that even 7-year olds can instinctively use Miller's Law to deceive. As punishment for some misdeed, I sent my son to his room after dinner without desert. Earlier that afternoon we made his favorite desert, chocolate chip cookies. At about 7 o'clock that evening, I heard pajama clad feet heading toward the kitchen. The pantry door opened. The clink of the cookie jar lid was unmistakable. I knew my son was taking a cookie. I crept to the kitchen and opened the door. There he sat. I did not catch him in the act, but there were cookie crumbs on his face and hands and the cookie jar was tightly positioned between his crossed legs. The conversation went something like this:
ME: Did you take a cookie?
MY SON: No, I didn't take a cookie.
ME: Don't lie to me, Son.
MY SON: I didn't take a cookie, Dad.
ME: How can you lie with cookie crumbs on your hands and face?
My reputation as an FBI Special Agent was at stake. If could get heinous criminals to confess, I could get my son to confess. I sat him in a chair and we had a heart-to-heart chat. A few minutes later, he admitted his guilt. I then focused on his lack of candor.
ME: Why did you lie to me, Son?
MY SON: I didn't lie to you, Dad. You asked me if I took a cookie. I didn't take a cookie...I took two cookies.
According to Miller's Law, my son did not lie to me. He told the truth, but the truth about what? He restricted his definition of "a cookie" to mean one cookie. The first cookie he took fits the definition of "a cookie." My son instinctively used Miller's Law to restrict the definition of the words "two cookies" to exclude the lesser-included first cookie. Fibs to Facts; A Parental Guide to Effective Communication contains more techniques to alert parents to when their children may be less than truthful or are reluctant to talk about sensitive topics.
Lawyers often encounter witnesses and defendants who maintain that they are telling the truth despite evidence to the contrary. The following excerpt is from the murder trials of Ritch Bryant, Randy Rojas, and Jessica Colwell. They were tried for the murder of Milton Walter, an African-American transient living in a vacant lot in Lancaster, California. Bryant, Rojas, and Colwell, along with Michael Thornton were members of a white supremacist gang called Nazi Low Riders. Gang members had to earn the right to wear certain tattoos, which gave them status in the gang. One of the most coveted tattoos was a set of two lightning bolts. Lightning bolts were the symbols used by the Nazi SS troops in WWII. The Nazi Low Riders adapted this symbol to represent their belief that the white race was superior to all other races. In order for gang members to earn the right to wear lightning bolt tattoos, referred to as bolts, they had to murder an African-American.
On November 25, 1995, Bryant, Rojas and Thornton decided to earn their bolts. They happened upon Milton Walker in the vacant lot where he slept. Thornton ran up to Walker, hit him and kicked him several times. As Walker tried to make his escape, Rojas hit him in the face with a 2 x 4. Walker fell to the ground motionless. Rojas hit him in the face 12 more times as he lay motionless on the blood soaked ground. The attackers then casually walked to a nearby fast food restaurant to wash the blood off their hands, clothes, and shoes. Shortly thereafter, they met Colwell and told her that they just earned their bolts. Colwell became excited and wanted to see the dead body. Bryant took Colwell back to the vacant lot to view the body. Rojas did not accompany them because he read in a crime magazine that criminals should never go back to the scene of the crime. Thornton did not go because he had a 10 o'clock curfew and he did not want to make his mother angry.
At the crime scene, Bryant checked Walker for a pulse. He found one. Colwell picked up a metal pipe that was lying nearby and poked it in Walker's eye. Bryant picked up the bloody 2 x 4 Rojas used earlier and struck Walker in the face two times. He stopped breathing. Bryant and Colwell were so excited about earning their bolts that they walked to the home of a tattoo artist, woke him up, and asked him to tattoo them on the spot. The tattoo artist told them to come to his shop the next day and he would apply the tattoos.
The trial took place in Judge Ito's courtroom. As you may recall Judge Ito gained notoriety in the O. J. Simpson murder trial. Rojas, Bryant, and Colwell demanded separate trials. Judge Ito, ordered that the three trials take place simultaneously in the same courtroom with three separate juries. The evidence was color coded and the juries were ushered in and out of the courtroom depending on what evidence a particular jury was allowed to see.
The defense attorney for Colwell contended that Walker was already dead when his client arrived and she merely hit a corpse, a misdemeanor in California. Contradicting extant evidence, the forensic pathologist hired by the defense testified that Walker was dead at the time Colwell struck him. A closer examination of the forensic pathologist's testimony revealed that he did tell the truth, but the truth about what? After twenty minutes of verbal sparring, the prosecutor discovered the value of Miller's Law when she asked this final series of questions.
PROSECUTOR: In terms of determining cause of death, you're familiar with the term brain dead?
PATHOLOGIST: Yes, Ma'am.
PROSECUTOR: Can someone be brain dead but still have heart and lung activity?
PATHOLOGIST: Yes, Ma'am.
PROSECUTOR: When you say Mr. Walker was dead are you talking about brain dead or are you talking about no heart or lung activity?
PATHOLOGIST: I'm talking about what I consider a clinical brain death.
PROSECUTOR: So, when you say Mr. Walker was dead for an hour or so, you're talking about brain dead is that correct?
PATHOLOGIST: Yes, Ma'am.
PROSECUTOR: Mr. Walker still could have had a heartbeat and be dead by your definition?
PATHOLOGIST: Yes.
PROSECUTOR: Could you determine if Mr. Walker had any brain activity at the time the defendant struck him?
PATHOLOGIST: No, but based on the extent of his injuries at the time the defendant struck Mr. Walker, I concluded that Mr. Walker's brain ceased to function.
PROSECUTOR: Without medical equipment, can you know for sure if Mr. Walker had no brain activity at the time the defendant struck him?
PATHOLOGIST: No, Ma'am.
The prosecutor defined the word "death" as no heart and lung activity. The pathologist defined death as a person with no brain activity regardless of their heart and lung activity. The pathologist told the truth, but the truth about what?
Additional techniques to detect deception are available in Psychological Narrative Analysis: A Professional Method to Detect Deception. Lecture notes are also available in a booklet titled Catch a Liar.
