338
Stevens, J., dissenting
the competence of the procedures that it has developed and relied upon in hundreds of thousands of cases.
In all events the concern about the burden of collateral debates about the integrity of a particular examination, or the competence of a particular examiner, provides no support for a categorical rule that requires exclusion even when the test is taken pursuant to a stipulation and even when there has been a stipulation resolving all potential collateral issues. Indeed, in this very case there would have been no need for any collateral proceedings because respondent did not question the qualifications of the expert who examined him, and surely the Government is in no position to argue that one who has successfully completed its carefully developed training program 27 is unqualified. The interest in avoiding burdensome collateral proceedings might support a rule prescribing minimum standards that must be met before any test is admissible,28 but it surely does not support the blunderbuss at issue.29
IV
The Government's concerns would unquestionably support the exclusion of polygraph evidence in particular cases, and may well be sufficient to support a narrower rule designed to respond to specific concerns. In my judgment, however,
27 See n. 5, supra.
28 See N. M. Rule Evid. § 11-707.
29 It has been suggested that if exculpatory polygraph evidence may be adduced by the defendant, the prosecutor should also be allowed to introduce inculpatory test results. That conclusion would not be dictated by a holding that vindicates the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to summon witnesses. Moreover, as noted above, studies indicate that exculpatory polygraphs are more reliable than inculpatory ones. See n. 22, supra. In any event, a concern about possible future legal developments is surely not implicated by the narrow issue presented by the holding of the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in this case. Even if it were, I can see nothing fundamentally unfair about permitting the results of a test taken pursuant to stipulation being admitted into evidence to prove consciousness of guilt as well as consciousness of innocence.
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