## Facts

- Airman Edward G. Scheffer, stationed at March Air Force Base, agreed to act as an informant for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and was told he would submit to periodic urinalysis and polygraph examinations.
- In April 1992, Scheffer provided a urine sample at OSI’s request and voluntarily took a polygraph examination; the examiner reported “no deception” when Scheffer denied drug use since joining the Air Force.
- OSI later learned the urine sample tested positive for methamphetamine.
- Scheffer was charged in a general court-martial with wrongful methamphetamine use, failure to go to his appointed place of duty, a 13-day unauthorized absence, and writing insufficient-funds checks.
- Scheffer testified, denied knowing drug use, and asserted an “innocent ingestion” defense; the prosecution impeached him with inconsistencies in prior statements.
- The defense sought to admit the polygraph results to support Scheffer’s credibility; the military judge excluded the evidence under Military Rule of Evidence 707, which categorically bars polygraph results and related references.
- Scheffer was convicted on all counts; intermediate military appellate review affirmed, but the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces reversed on Sixth Amendment grounds.

## Issues

1. Whether Military Rule of Evidence 707’s categorical exclusion of polygraph evidence in courts-martial violates the Sixth Amendment right to present a defense when offered to support the accused’s credibility.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed and upheld the facial constitutionality of Military Rule of Evidence 707.
- The Court held that the Sixth Amendment permits reasonable evidentiary restrictions and does not guarantee admission of all relevant defense evidence.
- The Court found Rule 707 served legitimate purposes, including excluding evidence with disputed reliability and protecting the factfinder’s role in assessing credibility.
- The Court concluded the exclusion did not prevent Scheffer from presenting the substance of his defense because he was able to testify and argue innocent ingestion without polygraph corroboration.
- A concurrence agreed the military could adopt a categorical ban but cautioned against reading the decision as a universal judgment that polygraphs are always unreliable or inadmissible.
- A dissent would have required a case-specific admissibility determination, reasoning the categorical ban could bar evidence central to an accused’s defense.

## Legal Principles

- The Sixth Amendment right to present a defense is subject to reasonable evidentiary rules; rulemakers have broad latitude to exclude evidence so long as restrictions are not arbitrary or disproportionate to their purposes.
- A categorical exclusion of a class of evidence can be constitutional when justified by legitimate trial interests, including reliability concerns and preserving the trier of fact’s credibility function.
- Excluding polygraph evidence offered to bolster an accused’s credibility does not necessarily implicate a “weighty” defense interest where the accused can still testify and present the defense theory through other evidence.

## Conclusion

The Court held that a courts-martial rule categorically excluding polygraph evidence is a permissible evidentiary restriction consistent with the Sixth Amendment because it rationally serves trial interests in reliability and credibility assessment and does not bar the accused from presenting the essential defense narrative.


United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303 (1998)