State and federal defenders in jurisdictions where polygraph admissibility is contested or where the prosecution offers polygraph-derived evidence.

Daubert / Frye Challenge, Polygraph Examination

FRE 702 / Frye motion to exclude polygraph evidence (or to admit a defense-favorable result). NRC 2003 grounded.

File the FRE 702 / Frye motion citing NRC 2003's finding that the physiological responses the polygraph measures arise in the absence of deception, and that anxiety about the test itself drives the same readings the prosecution will call evidence of guilt.

“These same states can arise in the absence of deception. Moreover, many other psychological and physiological factors (e.g., anxiety about being tested) also affect those responses.”
NRC, The Polygraph and Lie Detection (2003), Executive Summary(opens in new tab)

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What this template gives you that the discipline-specific treatise does not.

01.
Not undated boilerplate: the NRC 2003 finding and United States v. Scheffer are source-linked to the record, so the citation is one you can verify before you file. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303 (1998) upheld a per-se exclusion rule under Military Rule of Evidence 707, the federal-court doctrinal anchor.
02.
NRC found the underlying research base for polygraph accuracy 'relatively low' in quality.
03.
Polygraph countermeasures research is well-documented; cross-exam on examiner training in countermeasure detection is rarely conducted.

Authorities inside · source-checkable

The controlling authority this template is built on.

Before you buy, see the spine of the deliverable. Verbatim quotes are reproduced word for word from the opinion they cite; any attributed summary is labelled as a summary, never dressed up as a quote. Each entry links to its source so you can confirm it yourself. Nothing is paraphrased into a citation it does not support.

7Controlling authorities cited

7Verbatim opinion quotes

7Checkable source URLs

4Independent source hosts

Lead controlling authorityVerbatim quote
“these same states can arise in the absence of deception. Moreover, many other psychological and physiological factors (e.g., anxiety about being tested) also affect those responses.”
National Research Council, The Polygraph and Lie Detection (2003) — Executive Summary, p. 2 · Executive Summary — Basic ScienceVerify the source
Supporting authorityVerbatim quote
“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.”
United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303 (1998) (Thomas, J., majority) · 523 U.S. at 313Verify the source
Supporting authorityVerbatim quote
“Others have found that polygraph tests assess truthfulness significantly less accurately--that scientific field studies suggest the accuracy rate of the "control question technique" polygraph is "little better than could be obtained by the toss of a coin," that is, 50 percent.”
United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303 (1998) (Thomas, J., majority summarizing field-study findings) · 523 U.S. at 313Verify the source
Supporting authorityVerbatim quote
“the thing from which the deduction is made must be sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs.”
Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013, 1014 (D.C. Cir. 1923) — origin polygraph exclusion · 293 F. at 1014Verify the source
Supporting authorityVerbatim quote
“specific-incident polygraph tests can discriminate lying from truth telling at rates well above chance, though well below perfection.”
NRC, The Polygraph and Lie Detection (2003) — Executive Summary, p. 1 (committee's ceiling finding — real-world accuracy substantially lower) · Executive Summary, p. 1Verify the source
Supporting authorityVerbatim quote
“Estimates of accuracy from these 57 studies are almost certainly higher than actual polygraph accuracy of specific-incident testing in the field.”
NRC, The Polygraph and Lie Detection (2003) — Executive Summary, Evidence on Accuracy section · Executive Summary — Evidence on Polygraph AccuracyVerify the source
Supporting authorityVerbatim quote
“Its false-positive error rate—the rate at which it misidentified a truth as a lie—was unknown.”
American Psychological Association, summarizing NRC 2003 CQT findings · APA summary of NRC 2003Verify the source

Provenance: every citation above carries a source URL that was fetched and confirmed reachable when the template was authored. A citation without a working source URL does not ship. Counsel of record adapts the motion language to circuit-specific precedent and the facts of the case before filing.

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Daubert, Polygraph, Case details

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Frequently asked questions.

What does the brief contain?

Seven sections: cover (your case identifier + jurisdiction stamped on), reliability standard recap (Daubert v. Merrell Dow factors), the lead authority's verbatim finding with source URL, the cumulative-error history with cited exonerations / IG audits / appellate opinions, recommended FRE 702 motion language (~250 words editable), a 10-15 question cross-examination question bank, and the methods + source URLs bibliography.

Is this legal advice?

No. The template is a research artifact modeled on the published critique literature for this discipline. Counsel of record adapts the motion language to the controlling circuit's FRE 702 doctrine and the facts of the case before filing.

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Stripe checkout completes in seconds; the PDF is emailed to the address you provide. Templates are pre-built, there is no per-case data pipeline running.

Do you cite anything I cannot independently verify?

No. Every citation in every brief carries a source URL stored alongside. Lead authorities are PCAST 2016, NAS 2009 / 2014, NRC 1979 / 2003, FBI/DOJ 2015. All are public-domain and linked to their original publication pages.

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