Commonwealth v. Camacho-Vasquez

CHARLES, J,

To use a military analogy, the parties to this litigation are engaged in a “battle” over a parole violation within the context of a much larger “war” involving the efficacy of therapeutic polygraph examinations. Here, the Commonwealth seeks to revoke defendant’s parole largely because he flunked a polygraph examination that was designed to reveal details about his underlying offense. Defendant argues that polygraphs should never be employed as a strategy to justify parole violation punishment. In the alternative, defendant decries the tactic of using the polygraph examination as a…