Opinion ID: 1525843
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to cross-examine Hammer concerning polygraph examination

Text: Appellee also argues that trial counsel unreasonably failed to cross-examine Hammer by questioning him concerning his failure of the initial polygraph examination and his refusal to submit to a further examination after having given a statement implicating Appellee. Appellee invokes the legal principle that a witness may be cross-examined as to any matter tending to show the interest or bias of that witness. See Commonwealth v. Nolen, 535 Pa. 77, 83, 634 A.2d 192, 195 (1993). He develops that state police found Hammer to be DECEPTIVE when he denied having shot or helped to shoot Mr. Boyer, and denied having been physically present during the robbery/killing. [16] According to Appellee, the information need not have been introduced for its truth, but rather, could have been offered to demonstrate the extent of Hammer's incentive to curry favor with the authorities. Appellee observes that, at the PCRA hearing, trial counsel admitted, [i]f I could have got the fact that he took a lie detector test and the results of those lie detector tests into evidence, of course I would have done that. N.T., November 22, 2004, at 236. In United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 118 S.Ct. 1261, 140 L.Ed.2d 413 (1998), the United States Supreme Court upheld a per se ban on the admission of polygraph results in court martial proceedings based upon their inherent unreliability. See id. at 310-12, 118 S.Ct. at 1265-66. Scheffer has been applied more broadly to support the exclusion of polygraph evidence, even in the capital context. See, e.g., United States v. Fulks, 454 F.3d 410, 434 (4th Cir.2006) (` Scheffer, with its emphasis on the unreliability of polygraph evidence and the interest of courts in excluding such unreliable evidence, certainly suggests that exclusion of polygraph results would pass constitutional muster in th[e capital] context, as well.' (citation omitted)). Particularly in light of the federal authority, Appellee has provided no basis to undermine this Court's holdings precluding the admission of polygraph evidence. See, e.g., Brockington, 500 Pa. at 220, 455 A.2d at 629.