United States v. Scheffer - Significance

This case marked the first occasion on which the Supreme Court issued a ruling with regard to the highly controversial matter of polygraph, or "lie-detector," testing.

The United States v. Scheffer ruling came, as legal writer Joan Biskupic noted in the Washington Post, "at a time when [polygraph] machines are increasingly being used outside the courtroom"--and inside as well. Prosecutors were using polygraph results "to extract confessions from suspects," Biskupic observed, and defense lawyers were using "them for leverage in plea bargains"; likewise polygraph tests were being subjected to greater and greater use in the workplace. Employers were using them to test job applicants with regard to past wrongdoing, and to monitor present jobholders as well. While the latter practice might raise Fourth Amendment questions of its own, the use of polygraph results in the courtroom had become a battleground for opposing factions of evidentiary experts.