Cite as: 523 U. S. 303 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
Rule 707 serves several legitimate interests in the criminal trial process. These interests include ensuring that only reliable evidence is introduced at trial, preserving the court members' role in determining credibility, and avoiding litigation that is collateral to the primary purpose of the trial.5 The Rule is neither arbitrary nor disproportionate in promoting these ends. Nor does it implicate a sufficiently weighty interest of the defendant to raise a constitutional concern under our precedents.
A
State and Federal Governments unquestionably have a legitimate interest in ensuring that reliable evidence is presented to the trier of fact in a criminal trial. Indeed, the exclusion of unreliable evidence is a principal objective of many evidentiary rules. See, e. g., Fed. Rules Evid. 702, 802, 901; see also Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U. S. 579, 589 (1993).
The contentions of respondent and the dissent notwithstanding, there is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable. To this day, the scientific community remains extremely polarized about the reliability of polygraph techniques. 1 D. Faigman, D. Kaye, M. Saks, & J. Sanders, Modern Scientific Evidence 565, n. †, § 14-2.0 to § 14-7.0 (1997); see also 1 P. Giannelli & E. Imwinkelried, Scientific
5 These interests, among others, were recognized by the drafters of Rule 707, who justified the Rule on the following grounds: the risk that court members would be misled by polygraph evidence; the risk that the traditional responsibility of court members to ascertain the facts and adjudge guilt or innocence would be usurped; the danger that confusion of the issues " 'could result in the court-martial degenerating into a trial of the polygraph machine;' " the likely waste of time on collateral issues; and the fact that the " 'reliability of polygraph evidence has not been sufficiently established.' " See 41 M. J. 683, 686 (USAF Ct. Crim. App. 1995) (citing Manual for Courts-Martial, United States, Analysis of the Military Rules of Evidence, App. 22, p. A22-46 (1994 ed.)).
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