Stanisław Marian Waltoś (born 9 February 1932) is a Polish legal scholar and academic specializing in criminal law and legal history, professor of legal sciences, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Learning, professor of the Jagiellonian University, who was Head of the Department of Criminal Proceedings at the Faculty of Law of the Jagiellonian University from 1974, as well as the director of the Jagiellonian University Museum between 1977 and 2011.

He was the initiator of the introduction of anonymous witness and a turn state's evidence to the Polish criminal procedure.

From 1946, he attended the Władysław Jagiełło High School in Dębica, where in 1950 he passed the matriculation examination with distinction.

[3] He mentioned Adam Vetulani,[4][5] Marian Cieślak and Władysław Wolter as his “great masters”,[5] that had decisive influence on his formation as a legal scholar.

After completing his studies, he was prescripted to work at the District Prosecutor's Office in Kraków, where he was employed successively as an assessor, referendary and sub-prosecutor.

[1] In 1962 Stanisław Waltoś obtained a Ph.D. upon the dissertation Functions and forms of the indictment in a criminal trial, supervised by Marian Cieślak and subsequently awarded by the journal Państwo i Prawo.

[6] In 1974, he was appointed the Head of the Department of Criminal Proceedings at the Faculty of Law of the Jagiellonian University.

[3] He published as author, co-author or editor about four hundred academic papers and other works,[1] mainly in the field of criminal proceedings.

These include the academic textbook Proces karny: zarys systemu (Criminal Trial: The System Outline), that has been resumed and updated several times.

A number of his doctoral students subsequently became specialists in law and criminal proceedings, including: Barbara Nita-Światłowska, Andrzej Światłowski, Dobrosław Szumało-Kulczyk and Antoni Bojańczyk.

In the 1980s, he participated in the work of the Center for Civic Legislative Initiatives of the Solidarity, which was a collaborating body with the democratic opposition.

He refused, recommending his student Zbigniew Doda,[12] who subsequently became a judge at the Supreme Court and the president of its Criminal Chamber.

He was the initiator of the introduction to the Polish criminal procedure of an anonymous witness and a turn state's evidence.