Published: 10/19/2019
Rob Hanauer, defense attorney for embattled City Council member Zach Oyler, is trying to get polygraph evidence admitted to court. Councilman Oyler is facing misdemeanor charges of domestic battery and interfering with a report of domestic abuse in Peoria County. The alleged servant-leader took the polygraph under the direction of veteran polygraph examiner Steve Woody. Oyler was asked whether he physically struck or hit his wife in the July 30th incident. Oyler said no. Oyler will be in court November 15th on the motion to include the polygraph test into judicial evidence.
It’s hard to believe such evidence would be admitted into the court. Polygraphs are widely considered scientifically dubious at best. They are generally inadmissable in almost all court settings. This is because there’s no one specific physical sign that an individual is telling a lie or otherwise being deceitful. Dr. Leonard Saxe, a clinical psychologist and professor at Brandeis University near Boston, says virtually the entire scientific community rebukes the efficacy of so-called lie-detectors. “A polygraph test measures anxiety — and anxiety is sometimes associated with lying, but other times is associated with trying really hard to tell the truth… In some cases, there may not be alternatives [to prove truth or innocence], but that doesn’t mean you use unreliable science as evidence.” In fact, the inventor of the Polygraph, John Augustus Larson, eventually came to the conclusion his device was being misused and abused. Larson wrote shortly before his death in 1965, “Beyond my expectation, thru uncontrollable factors, this scientific investigation became for practical purposes a Frankenstein’s monster, which I have spent over 40 years in combating.”
So, why is Rob Hanauer trying so hard to have unscientific evidence included in a judicial system that almost never allows such evidence? Likely to effect the general public’s opinion about this case. People are used to seeing polygraph examinations on police dramas or on tabloid talk shows like the Maury Povich Show or the Jerry Springer Show. It’s going to be hard to find a jury who hasn’t at least read in the news that Oyler passed a polygraph examination.
Zach Oyler’s survivor, wife Heather Oyler, has now come forward with a full recantation of events. She says she wants charges dropped against her husband and the July 30th incident was a complete misunderstanding that grew out of proportions. In an interview with Chris Kaergard of the Peoria Journal Star, Heather had this to say:
While there was a dispute between the two, her perspective on the specific matters where Zach Oyler is charged are that they were misunderstandings rather than malevolent action.
“Zach and I did get in an argument. To be frankly honest with you, a lot of people get in arguments,” she said. “The problem was something that was said within this argument triggered me to completely get more upset than I needed to.”
Heather Oyler says she’s long grappled with issues of mental health, and she’d had issues with changes in her treatment at the time which might’ve affected how she reacted that night. She had talked through her recollections of that night with therapaists and a psychiatrist before speaking to the Journal Star.
“Zach was trying to calm me down,” Heather Oyler says. After having had a couple drinks earlier in the night, “he knew he couldn’t drive, and he knows that if I take my medication I take before I go to sleep for my diagnosis that I can’t drive either,” she says. “I can be walking and talking and not even realize it after I take some of this medication. And it was the time of night where I would’ve taken it by that point. I hadn’t taken anything — I told the police that. But Zach didn’t know that because he’d been in and out of the room for the majority of the night.”
As to another allegation, made in reports after the arrest but not formally part of the charges against him, Heather Oyler said this: “He did not put his hands around my neck.”
“I reached out … because I was tired of waiting for this to get better. And I reached out … because I feel people deserve to know what happened,” Heather Oyler said. “They’ve been screaming at Zach during public comments that he owes an explanation.1 He legally can’t give one right now, but the thing is, I can.”2
“We’re living under the same roof. We’re trying to get back to life as normal,” she says. “If anything, this has brought us closer together because we trust each other more now.
“It’s given us the opportunity to look into some of my challenges a little bit more and I’ve seen that he’s been there for me throughout all of this, and that’s been one of the most amazing things,” she added.
Heather Oyler is critical of the way she feels she’s been treated by state’s attorney’s office, and says she has told officials there that she’d testify “that this is not how it seems, that I was upset.”
She says that she called prosecutors’ offices to ask that charges not be filed, and that she had no warning when they eventually were.
Last week, Heather Oyler said, she spoke with an assistant state’s attorney working on the case, detailing her recollections of the night and her other struggles.
“They didn’t take a single note when I spoke to them the other day,” Heather Oyler said. ”… (The assistant state’s attorney) just said again it’s their job to file charges and she just had a feeling. I asked her, if you just have a feeling that someone’s driving down the street impaired, you can’t pull them over unless you have probable cause. I gave the police probable cause that night because of the case I was in, but I’m telling you that’s not what happened.
″… I explained to them that this was making things with my job difficult, it was making things with Zach’s job difficult, it was making our public life difficult,” she added.
“I know there’s going to be people that say that I was coaxed into this, and I wasn’t. Zach can’t tell me what to do at this point anymore,” Heather Oyler said. “I feel like no one can tell me what I can or can’t do any more, because I’ve been spending a majority of my life listening to what everybody else wants, and at this point all I want is for our life to be better and normal, and I want to help make other people’s lives better.” That includes, she says, being forthright about mental health struggles. “There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s the same thing as having diabetes or high blood pressure or cancer. It’s something that you have to treat and you have to work with,” Heather Oyler said. “And it’s something that you’re going to live with for a long time — those are things that don’t go away, those disorders. Instead of being afraid of it, treat it like it’s a normal person.”3
State’s Attorney Jodi Hoos said that prosecutors would continue to review the case.
“Sadly, victims of domestic violence often are not able to help themselves. They look for reasons to stay, rather than leave, blame themselves and rarely cooperate with the prosecution of the abuser,” Hoos said. “As State’s Attorney I represent the public as a whole, and sometimes, that means going forward on a case where there is sufficient evidence to prove it, even if the victim does not want to.”
“In this matter, we will continue to evaluate the victim’s statements along with other evidence, such as the 911 call, body camera footage, photographs taken at the scene, etc.,” she added. 3
If the Peoria County State’s Attorney refuses to drop the charges, Zach Oyler is scheduled for a January 2019 jury trial.
UPDATE: On October 16th, 2020, Councilmember Zach Oyler took an Alford plea to disorderly conduct as part of an agreement to have other charges stemming from a July 2019 domestic incident dropped. Oyler & his wife have reconciled. (SEE FULL DETAILS)
For more Fragments on Playing in Peoria, see here.
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