Lie to Me

I've instructed my client to remain silent.

He's not gonna talk.

Oh, that's okay. That's okay. I don't have much faith in words myself.

Now, statistically speaking, the average person...

tells three lies per 10 minutes of conversation.

And, granted, that's just regular people.

We haven't studied any people who are planning to firebomb a black church.

Could skew differently.

We don't have time for this scientist to talk to the guy.

We went at him for four hours and got nothing.

Now, the F.B.I. knows you want mass casualties.

So right now, A.T.F. is searching every inch...

of the two largest black churches in the state.

Ooh. The F.B.I. got it wrong. Well, there's a shocker.

Not one of those two churches.

Maybe you want...

one of the smaller churches in one of the black suburbs.

- You don't know what you're talking about. - Don't respond!

What do you say A.T.F. starts with Southbridge?

No, I'm only kidding. We're gonna skip that one.

They're gonna focus on Lawton.

You feel good about that?

That's it. Lawton. Going after a church in Lawton.

That accusation has no basis.

What do you mean? He just told me.

The A.T.F. found a pipe bomb in a church basement in Lawton an hour later.

D.O.D. friend of mine said this guy's a total nut job.

Heard he spent, like, three years in the African jungle...

with some primitive tribes studying their eyebrows.

Watch his reaction to my statement.

Right now, A.T.F. is searching every inch...

of the two largest black churches in the state.

Now, what you just saw there was a brief expression of happiness on his face,

which he was trying his best to conceal.

It lasted for less than a fifth of a second,

and it's what we call a micro expression.

Now, look at his mouth.

The suspect is secretly happy about the locations we are searching,

which tells me we have the wrong locations.

Now I tell him of our new plan. And-

You don't know what you're talking about. Classic one-sided shrug.

Translation: I have absolutely no confidence in what I just said.

The body contradicts the words. He's lying. Yeah?

When you accuse a suspect and he acts surprised,

is there a way to tell if it's real, or if he's just trying to look innocent?

Now, that's real surprise. Lasts for less than a second when it comes across your face.

But if your suspect is surprised for more than a second, he's faking it.

He's lying.

Now, I call out that his target is actually Lawton.

And... watch it again.

Concealed scorn.

And one personal tip. If you see this micro expression in your spouse's face,

your marriage is coming to an end, trust me.

Yeah?

Uh, don't these micro expressions vary depending on the person?

Let's leave this up, and we'll go to the Kato Kaelin footage from the O.J. trial.

Mr. Kaelin, you got a lot of money...

for your appearance on A Current Affair, didn't you?

Um, yeah-Scorn. Scorn.

Huge scorn.

Shame, shame, and shame. Contempt.

These expressions are universal.

Emotion looks the same whether you're a suburban housewife or a suicide bomber.

The truth is written on all our faces.

Just the man I was looking for.

Today's the day. Say it.

You're the shrink. I'm not big on self-affirmation. I'm telling you,

we cannot wait another day to hire someone.

I found the one. This is the one. I-

Use your words. Why do we need to hire someone?

We got a new request this morning from the D.E.A. and Homeland Security.

Someone from the prime minister's office in Uzbekistan called.

They want us to give a talk to their senior police.

Tell them to call back when they got a constitution. A real one.

Here's the analysis from the blinking experiment.

You just getting in, Loker? Yeah. I got piss-drunk last night with my roommate.

And I was just lying in bed this morning thinking about how nasty-hot Nancy Grace is,

and just trying to decide if I was gonna come in at all 'cause...

it's not like there's anyone here to fantasize about. No offense taken.

I don't go for married women.

Cal.

Cal. Cal!

Dr. Lightman, I have the mayor on two for you. Right.

Mr. Mayor.

I see. No, of course.

No, anytime.

- What is it? - Some blowup at the Justice Department...

about a high school teacher that was killed in the Northwest.

He wants us on it right away since-What is that?

- Chocolate pudding. - Who eats pudding at 10:00 in the morning?

People who like pudding.

The mayor thanks you and Dr. Foster for coming on short notice.

This case is a land mine. We got a juvenile offender,

a family of devout Jehovah's Witnesses.

We gotta be real careful here.

Three days ago, James Cole, 16-year-old student at Jackson High,

murdered his teacher, Susan McCartney.

After Mr. Cole got into Ms. McCartney's house,

he smashed her head into a glass coffee table.

He then was caught fleeing the house by two patrolmen.

Been in custody here ever since.

Hands out front.

So what exactly does the mayor want to find out about the McCartney murder?

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Hutchinson and Estin.

The kid was at the scene of the crime.

He had motive, means, and he resisted arrest. And he failed a polygraph test.

- It's murder one. - Well, I guess we're all here then.

Someone who wants the truth, someone who wants to be right,

and us-the idiots in the middle.

The U.S. Attorney's Office wants to try Cole as an adult.

But if the mayor is gonna support sending a 16-year-old to prison...

for the rest of his life, he wants to be certain...

we're talking about a premeditated, cold-blooded murder.

He wants you to provide an independent assessment of intent.

We'll need the crime scene photos and the autopsy report.

I thought you could tell if somebody was lying just by looking at them.

The question is never simply if someone is lying. It's why.

Look, I already told the police everything, okay?

Tell us why you think you're here, James.

I was out for a run,

and the police thought I was running from them.

So they arrested me.

I heard you made your school's track team.

I-I didn't "make" it. They don't have tryouts.

Oh. What was your best race this year?

Uh, I-I don't know.

Um, probably against Jefferson last week. Why?

I ran hurdles myself. 110 meters.

How'd your quads feel during the race? Um-

Uh-

Good, I-I guess.

And what about on your run the night you were arrested?

I felt fine.

Your teacher, Ms. McCartney, was found dead in her home.

Have you ever been to her house before?

No, I've never been to her house before.

Ms. McCartney thought that you should be held back a year...

because she felt you were having some problems with your classmates.

What? I didn't wanna get held back.

How did you feel when you found out she was dead?

I prayed for her soul.

I can't know God's plan.

But I didn't kill her.

Hurdles?

I could've run hurdles. Please.

So you get a sense of his intent?

When I asked James about his best race, he broke eye contact...

in order to remember and answer truthfully.

When I asked him about his run the night of the murder, he never broke eye contact.

He wasn't recalling a memory. He was lying.

But I thought most people avoid eye contact when they're lying.

No, it's a myth. And quite often, they make more eye contact.

They need to watch to see if you believe their lies.

The content analysis would suggest that James has been to Ms. McCartney's house before.

Question: "Have you ever been to her house?"

Answer: "No, I have never been to her house."

Rigid repetition like that is typical of a lie.

Okay. So you'll tell the mayor's office the murder was premeditated?

Looks that way. But when I asked him about his teacher's death,

what we saw was this-oblique eyebrows.

Sadness. Why would he be hiding sadness for her?

- Looks like guilt to me. - Well, it's possible he didn't mean to kill his teacher.

- Excuse me? - Could have been an accident.

Okay.

Okay, I indulged the mayor's office in letting you talk to the kid.

But now, you're just making wild guesses that have no basis in hard evidence.

This was no accident.

And personally, I think what you do is a joke. It's a friggin' carnival act.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I get that a lot.

You know, a moment ago, I saw you smile at your colleague.

Flash her a glance, then shift your gaze.

She responded by raising her chin boss,

revealing deep embarrassment.

Cal. I'll take another wild guess.

You two had a fling.

She doesn't want a repeat performance because, you know, what with your wife and all.

But you won't move on. Oh, no, no.

Keep your fingers off your nose. Men have erectile tissue there.

Itches when they're hiding something.

I've been principal here for over three years,

and we've never faced anything like this.

To lose a teacher, and then to find out that a student might have been responsible, it's-

I understand James was new to the school. Yes.

His parents chose to home school him until this year...

because they're devout Jehovah's Witnesses.

He was prepared academically, but he had real difficulties socially.

Did he ever express emotion of any kind towards Ms. McCartney?

He was sent to my office a number of times, but he never mentioned her specifically.

But I can tell you...

the boy's father had some strong objections to Ms. McCartney's teaching.

He was outraged that she had assigned the book...

The Color Purple to her students.

He thought it was pornographic.

All right. They're ready for you.

But can I just say, uh, as much as we all mourn this loss,

no teacher that I've spoken to believes that this boy should go to prison for life.

He was in the Photography Club for, like, five minutes before he quit.

It seemed like he didn't talk ever.

He took really good photos though.

I never saw him hang out with anybody.