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Reed v. Maryland9/6/1978
n later confessed to the crime which the tests indicated that Frye did not commit.
Comment, The Truth About the Lie Detector in Federal Court, 51 Temp. L. Q. 69, 81 (1978), states, " espite the obsolescence and peculiarities of Frye, few cases denying the admission of the lie detector evidence have explained why Frye should be followed."
Upon examining the early lie detector cases, Kaplan, supra, 10 Wayne L. Rev., concluded:
" he standards of admissibility by which lie detector evidence has been judged are general scientific acceptance and infallibility. Along the same vein, one writer says, in reference to the lie detector, 'if fallible in the slightest degree, it would be shocking to permit a life to be gambled upon the wheel of chance.'" Id. at 385 (Emphasis in original) (footnote omitted).
Dean McCormick struck a similar note in his article, Deception-Tests and the Law of Evidence, 15 Cal. L. Rev. 484 (1927):
"The comments of some legal writers seem tacitly to assume that the deception-tests must be shown not only to be scientifically accepted as evidential or significant, but that they must be demonstrated to be error-proof. But it is apparent that no capacity for anything like a hundred per cent correctness of results is required. The emotional curve is to be admitted merely as circumstantial evidence of a truthful intent or the reverse. If the test results are shown by scientific experience to render the inferences of consciousness of falsity or truth substantially more probable, then the courts should accept the evidence, though the possibility of error in the inference be recognized. The admission of
evidence that blood-hounds have followed a trail from the crime to the whereabouts of the accused, of evidence of similarity of footmarks, and of conduct to show insanity, are all striking examples of the fact that conclusiveness in the inference called for by the evidence is not a requirement for admissibility." Id. at 500 (footnotes omitted).
Noting the general rule that all relevant evidence should be admitted unless some rule of exclusion applies, Kaplan states:
"Referring back to the lie detector cases, it seems clear that the courts do not judge the admissibility of the evidence according to this procedure. Rather than considering the probative value of the evidence to see if it is prima facie admissible and then the policies which weigh against admission, the courts assume that the evidence should be excluded unless it is shown that the lie detector has received 'general scientific acceptance' or is 'infallible.' In this way, the courts fail to identify the policy considerations against admission and hinder constructive attempts to provide safeguards against the dangers feared." 10 Wayne L. Rev. at 394 (emphasis in original).
Kaplan poses an interesting question:
"In reading through the cases on lie detector evidence, one may wonder why the courts have been so adamant in their refusal to admit such evidence that they appear to manipulate the standard applied in judging its admission. At the same time, the courts have been very liberal in accepting other developments of science." Id. at 409.
The answer he comes up with is that, unlike other scientific evidence which is circumstantial, polygraph evidence goes only to credibility, and there is no need for such evidence, since the jury is capable of deciding issues of credibility without the aid of a machine. See id. at 413-14.
A similar rationale for distinguishing lie detectors from other scientific evidence was set forth by Chief Judge Gibson for the Eighth Circuit in United States v.
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