Criminal Law-Child Sexual Abuse-Exclusion of Polygraph Results-Complete Defense

Defendant appealed his conviction for aggravated sexual abuse of a child and aggravated sexual contact of a child after sexually touching his minor stepdaughter on multiple occasions. Pretrial, the government sought to admit statements defendant had made during an interview with an FBI agent. The district court ruled that testimony from the agent and a redacted transcript from the interview could be admitted, but the parties were barred from telling the jury that defendant had failed a polygraph before the interview. On appeal, defendant argued that the exclusion of his polygraph results precluded him from presenting a defense that his statements during the interview were made to “explain away” the results.

Where the concerns over admitting potentially unreliable polygraph results, including the potential for jury confusion and overcomplicating the trial, outweighed any benefit the context provided by the results would have for defendant’s defense, the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to admit the results.

Judgment is affirmed.

U.S. v. Hudspeth (MLW No. 84654/Case No. 25-1434 – 8 pages) (U.S. Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit, Loken, J.) Appealed from U.S. District Court, District of South Dakota, Theeler, J. (Ellery Grey, Rapid City, SD for appellant) (Ann Marie Hoffman, AUSA, Sioux Falls, SD for appellee)