Court Opinion

ID: 9559518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:30:32.311729+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:20.954919
License: Public Domain

ROSE, Justice,
specially concurring.
I read the majority opinion to hold for these following propositions with respect to the polygraph stipulation:
*460(1) Polygraph testing and opinions of an expert — assuming proper foundation is laid — constitute admissible evidence.
(2) The stipulation in this case was binding because it contemplated the jury’s exposure to admissible evidence.
(3) There was no error in not giving the jury a cautionary and informative instruction about polygraphy in this case since none was offered — but that in the future it should be given.
Assuming this to be the holding, I concur.
It would be impossible for me to concur in the opinion if I were not able to glean from the writing that this court is now recognizing the art of polygraphy to have reached such a state of reliability as will constitute admissible evidence. If this were not so, the stipulation could not make admissible that which was in law inadmissible. This thought is perhaps better expressed by the author of an article in Vol. 26, Part 2, Hastings Law Journal (1975), where he asks:
“. . .By what logic should stipulated polygraph evidence be admissible when the same evidence without stipulation is barred?”
The Hastings Law Journal author goes on to say:
“. . . While a stipulation may of course admit facts, it is obviously inoperative if it attempts to change the law.”