United States of America v. Oscar Hudspeth, Sr.

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 25-1434
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United States of America
lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee
v.
Oscar Hudspeth, Sr.
lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the District of South Dakota - Western
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Submitted: October 24, 2025
Filed: April 24, 2026
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Before LOKEN, BENTON, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.
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LOKEN, Circuit Judge.
A jury convicted Oscar Hudspeth, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, of two
sex abuse crimes in Indian country for sexually touching his young stepdaughter D.J.
on multiple occasions -- aggravated sexual abuse of a child in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§§ 1153, 2241(c), and 2246(2)(D), and abusive sexual contact of a child in violation

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of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1153, 2244(a)(5), and 2246(3). The district court1 sentenced
Hudspeth to the mandatory minimum sentence of 360 months imprisonment.
Victim D.J. testified at trial that Hudspeth touched her sexually on at least two
occasions when she was five to seven years old. The credibility of this testimony was
a major issue in the three-day trial and in the closing arguments of counsel. However,
the government’s trial evidence also included admissions Hudspeth made during an
FBI interview, conducted soon after D.J. told a school administrator that Hudspeth
had “done bad things to me,” that he “probably maybe” touched D.J.’s vagina while
she was living with her stepfather in his home from ages four to seven. In pretrial and
trial rulings, the district court ruled that testimony by the interviewing agent and a
redacted version of the interview transcript would be admitted but barred both parties
from telling the jury Hudspeth failed a polygraph test just before this interview.
Hudspeth appeals, arguing this evidentiary exclusion violated his constitutional
right to present a complete defense because it prevented him from arguing to the jury
that he made the incriminating statements only to “explain away” adverse polygraph
test results. The government argues that Hudspeth is not entitled to review of this
issue and that, even if preserved, the argument is without merit. We will bypass a
complex invited error contention. Reviewing the complete-defense argument on the
merits, we conclude there was no constitutional violation or abuse of discretion and
affirm Hudspeth’s conviction.
I. Background and Procedural History
When D.J. was seven, she moved out of Hudspeth’s home because he and her
mother were separating. When she was eleven, she told a school administrator
1The Honorable Camela C. Theeler, United States District Judge for the District
of South Dakota.
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Hudspeth had “done bad things to me.” The administrator reported this to a school
social worker. D.J. also reported the abuse to her mother and in a forensic interview.
After Hudspeth learned that D.J. had made allegations against him, he agreed
to a voluntary law enforcement interview and polygraph test at a social services
building. FBI Special Agent Timothy Wittman administered the polygraph test and
then told Hudspeth it was “absolutely clear you did have some type of sexual contact”
with D.J. Hudspeth initially denied sexual contact -- “I swear to God I didn’t.” But
as the interview continued, he made increasingly incriminating statements, such as
“I probably did touch her vagina,” that he “might’ve” had an erection when he
touched her, and that he had “probably” incriminated himself.
On the eve of trial, the government moved to admit the post-polygraph
interview but to suppress all mention of the polygraph. Hudspeth agreed the
polygraph should be excluded and argued that the entire interview should be
suppressed because the polygraph is mentioned throughout the interview.
Alternatively, he argued that, if the interview is admitted, all mention of the
polygraph should be redacted, and he moved to prohibit reference to the polygraph.
At the first pretrial conference, the district court noted both parties agreed there
should be no reference to the polygraph exam. The government argued redactions
were feasible; Hudspeth said that was impossible. The court postponed ruling until
the next pretrial conference so the government could produce proposed redactions.
At that second conference, the government produced a 46-minute recording and
corresponding redacted transcript that removed any mention of the polygraph exam.
When it became clear the court would admit some version of the interview,
Hudspeth changed positions, arguing the entire interview should be admitted or
played in a recording to provide context, including references to the polygraph exam.
The district court noted this request was contrary to counsel’s motion in limine and
asked if he had alternative redactions to propose. Hudspeth did not propose
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additional redactions. The district court noted Hudspeth’s concerns about placing the
statements in context in ruling that the 46-minute redacted recording would be
admitted. Hudspeth renewed his objection to the recording at trial. But he did not
argue that admitting evidence of the interview while excluding any mention of the
polygraph test would violate his right to present a complete defense.2
Consistent with her initial reports, D.J. testified at trial that Hudspeth touched
her sexually on at least two occasions when she was five to seven years old while her
mother was not home. On the first occasion, Hudspeth told her to come to his bed
so he could check her underwear. While laying behind the child, he put his hands
under her underwear, touched her “private part” with his hands, and moved it in a
circular motion. His hands were “big, warm, and felt like sandpaper” and his
breathing was heavy. He stopped when D.J. said she was going to her room. The
second time, D.J. went into her parents’ room to play. Hudspeth said he was going
to check her underwear. He put his hand under her pants and underwear and touched
her vagina. He also put his hand on her butt, underneath her underwear. D.J. felt
“something poky” on her butt while Hudspeth was lying behind her and touching her.
After the government rested, Hudspeth testified in his own defense about the
conditions of the interview, that he was frustrated, had not eaten, and had not taken
his diabetes medicine. He was not permitted to explain to the jury that the interview
took place after he was told he failed a polygraph test. On appeal, he argues this
deprived him of his constitutional right to present a complete defense.
2Hudspeth had twice asked the district court to exclude all references to the
polygraph. “Under the invited error doctrine, a defendant who invites the district
court to make a particular ruling waives his right to claim on appeal that the ruling
was erroneous.” United States v. Corn, 47 F.4th 892, 895 (8th Cir. 2022) (citation
omitted), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 1093 (2023).
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II. Discussion
We review evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion, giving substantial
deference to the district court’s exclusion of evidence if it does not unfairly prevent
a party from proving its case. If exclusion of evidence implicates a constitutional
right, including the right to present a complete defense, our review is de novo. United
States v. Roubideaux, 112 F.4th 606, 613 (8th Cir. 2024) (citations omitted).
“The Fifth and Sixth Amendments guarantee criminal defendants a meaningful
opportunity to present a complete defense.” United States v. Duggar, 76 F.4th 788,
791 (8th Cir. 2023) (cleaned up), cert. denied, 144 S. Ct. 2685 (2024); see Crane v.
Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690 (1986). “[T]he Supreme Court has struck a balance to
accommodate other legitimate interests in the criminal trial process: ordinary
evidentiary rules still apply, except when they infringe upon a weighty interest of the
accused and are arbitrary or disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to
serve.” Duggar, 76 F.4th at 791 (cleaned up), quoting United States v. Scheffer, 523
U.S. 303, 308-09 (1998).
Hudspeth has not satisfied either requirement. First, Hudspeth lacked a
“weighty interest” in the excluded evidence. “[T]here is simply no consensus that
polygraph evidence is reliable.” Scheffer, 523 U.S. at 309. Likewise, “[o]ur cases
make clear that polygraph evidence is disfavored.” United States v. Gill, 513 F.3d
836, 846 (8th Cir. 2008) (collecting cases). Thus, application of this ordinary rule of
exclusion does not infringe a weighty interest of the accused.
Hudspeth argues he had an interest in providing context for his incriminating
statements -- that he made the statements only because he was under “psychological
pressure” to “explain away” the polygraph results. The jury was well aware of the
context surrounding Hudspeth’s incriminating statements in the interview. Agent
Wittman began the interview saying “it’s absolutely clear that you did have some type
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of sexual contact with” D.J. The jury then heard Hudspeth, testifying in his own
defense, try to “explain away” his incriminating statements by focusing on the
stressful nature of the interview. He does not explain how the jury knowing of the
polygraph test would “change the context” to make the incriminating statements more
likely false. The evidence, including the interview transcript, told the jury that
Hudspeth was under “psychological pressure” to “explain away” his incriminating
admissions. Yet they either found the admissions credible, or found that the other
evidence, primarily D.J.’s testimony, established Hudspeth’s guilt without regard to
the credibility of his interview admissions. The evidence provided the district court
constitutionally sufficient context to admit Hudspeth’s interview statements but
exclude reference to the presumptively unreliable polygraph evidence.
Hudspeth argues that Crane v. Kentucky allows a defendant to admit any
evidence providing context for a confession regardless of the rules of evidence. We
rejected this argument in Rucker v. Norris:
Crane proscribed only the “wholesale exclusion” of evidence pertaining
to the credibility of a confession. The Court carefully explained that it
was not questioning “the power of States to exclude evidence through
the application of evidentiary rules that themselves serve the interests of
fairness and reliability,” nor the “wide latitude” given trial judges to
exclude “repetitive” evidence, “marginally relevant” evidence, and
evidence posing an undue risk of harassment, prejudice, or confusion of
the issues.
563 F.3d 766, 770 (8th Cir.), quoting Crane, 476 U.S. at 689-91, cert. denied, 558
U.S. 950 (2009).
Second, the exclusion of this polygraph evidence was not arbitrary nor
disproportionate to the purposes Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence is
designed to serve. The benefit to Hudspeth of admitting facially adverse polygraph
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evidence is speculative, but there are strong justifications for excluding it. These
include “ensuring that only reliable evidence is introduced at trial, preserving the
court members’ role in determining credibility, and avoiding litigation that is
collateral to the primary purpose of the trial.” Scheffer, 523 U.S. at 309. Hudspeth
concedes that polygraph results are almost always excluded but argues that harm
occurs only when polygraph evidence is introduced for the test results, whereas he
seeks admission to show the effect it had on him. We are unpersuaded. Once the
polygraph door is opened, the prosecution will no doubt inquire into the unfavorable
test results, triggering a collateral mini-trial with conflicting expert opinions as to the
reliability of polygraph testing. And even if the test results were excluded, the jury
would infer the results were unfavorable, since his proffered defense -- “I was
pressured into explaining the results” -- only makes sense if he failed the test. Thus,
giving the jury slightly less context for Hudspeth’s admissions was a “proportionate”
way of keeping presumptively unreliable evidence out of the trial.
Finally, even if the district court erred in excluding any reference to the
polygraph test, any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v.
Herbst, 668 F.3d 580, 585 (8th Cir. 2012). The evidence against Hudspeth was
strong. D.J. testified credibly and in great detail about Hudspeth’s abuse and was
subject to extensive cross-examination establishing that her memory of terrifying
events some years earlier was imperfect. The forensic interviewer provided expert
testimony why children who suffer sexual abuse often have memory gaps and
frequently delay reporting the abuse. In addition, Hudspeth made over a dozen
incriminating statements in the post-polygraph interview, and many of his
incriminating statements corroborated D.J.’s testimony. Before Agent Wittman’s
interview of Hudspeth, D.J. had accused Hudspeth of sexual abuse in the forensic
interview. Hudspeth was aware of the general nature of the allegations but did not
know the specifics. Yet his incriminating account of the incidents aligned with hers
-- the number of times he touched her (two or three, definitely not four), the touching
under her underwear, the erection poking her through his shorts.
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Moreover, if polygraph evidence would have impacted Hudspeth’s defense, it
would probably be harmful since he failed the polygraph. Though judges and experts
consider polygraph tests generally unreliable, juries are believed to give the results
too much weight. See Scheffer, 523 U.S. at 309, 313-14. This is one reason there is
a strong presumption against their admission. See Gill, 513 F.3d at 846. This is
likely why Hudspeth initially moved to have this evidence excluded. Because “the
evidence of [his] guilt was strong and the probative weight of the excluded evidence
was relatively weak, we are confident that the error complained of did not contribute
to the verdict obtained.” United States v. Eagle, 498 F.3d 885, 889 (8th Cir. 2007)
(cleaned up).
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.
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