# Commonwealth v. Vitello

> Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · September 26, 1978 · 376 Mass. 426

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9517322

## Case

- **Full name:** Commonwealth vs. Peter Vitello
- **Court:** Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
- **Decided:** September 26, 1978
- **Citations:** 376 Mass. 426; 381 N.E.2d 582; 1978 Mass. LEXIS 1131
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Kaplan
- **Judges:** Hennessey, Quirico, Braucher, Kaplan, Wilkins, Liacos, Abrams
- **Cited by:** 100 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9517322

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that where constitutionally permissible, full probative value is to be given to an extrajudicial identification, even if the witness who identified the defendant outside of court failed to do so in court

## Opinion text

Kaplan, J.
(concurring). When, in Commonwealth v. A Juvenile, 365 Mass. 421 (1974), the court was approving *465 the forensic use of polygraph results, thus departing from Commonwealth v. Fatalo, 346 Mass. 266 (1963), the dissenting Justices ventured to doubt that the question was best resolved by applying only the usual process of judicial lucubration. They suggested that a suitable team should be asked to undertake a study which, if favorable to the general idea of admitting evidence deriving from the polygraph technique, could propose court rules laying down definite limits and detailed procedures. There was another suggestion, that if the question was indeed to be answered solely through judicial decision, it would be peculiarly important to follow and in due course to describe and assess the consequences as they emerged in actual practice at the trial court level. I continue to regret that the opportunity for rule making was lost and no attempt at follow-up was inaugurated. Failing either kind of aid, caution is called for in the case by case elaboration of the subject, and in that light the main opinion herein has some considerable virtues. It describes certain features of the polygraph method which should discourage any routine acceptance of polygraph results, and on analysis it trims down the purposes for which those materials may be admitted in evidence. I concur, although with misgivings as to whether the analysis would not justify rather more stringent limitations.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9517322. Public record. Not legal advice.