Neuroscience in the Courtroom

Bringing neuroscience into the courtroom has been talked about a lot in recent years. Lawyers, philosophers, and scientists have all come together to really try to find the point where the two fields of science and law intersect. To answer questions such as: is someone responsible for their actions if they are not mentally competent? Or what brain dysfunctions can explain how people get to the point where they cannot be judged based on their actions?  

In the article “Law and Neuroscience,” the writer says that the engagement of law with neuroscientific evidence was inevitable. The article says that the effectiveness of legal systems can depend on the state that the person’s brain is in. This is because the way that they regulate behavior and look to find just ways to punish them is mostly dependent on if they have enough evidence to why or how the person behaved the way that they did. The article's authors give reasons for how neuroscience could be useful to the law. They state seven ways that neuroscientific evidence may be beneficial in aiding law: Buttressing, challenging, detecting, sorting, intervening, explaining, and predicting. Neuroscientific evidence can help increase juror confidence in a conclusion that was made with the other evidence presented, this would be buttressing. It can also help challenge claims that have been made already.  

There have been many cases in which neuroscientific evidence has been presented and changed a conclusion. In the article “Did His Mind Make Him Do It? How Neuroscience Entered the Courtroom,” published in The New York Times, we see a case about a 65-year-old New Yorker, Herbert Weinstein, who strangled his wife and then proceeded to throw her out a window. The use of neuroscientific evidence was used and aided in understanding why Weinstein did what he did. The article claims that this evidence only helped in the short term, he did not get charged with a murder charge. It was the first case in which brain imagery had been used and aided in mitigating the sentence of a “confessed killer.” With further research and evidence found, they found that Weinstein had had motives and his lawyer’s only response or defense was that “his brain made him do it.”  

While the brain defense did reduce Weinstein’s sentence and saved his life, he was still sent to prison, and every time that he went up for parole he was denied. This was because of the same defense that previously reduced his sentence. He had a huge cyst in his brain, which in his defense caused him to kill his wife. During his time in prison, he still had that same cyst. So, when his time came to go up for parole, he was denied due to the question of: if his cyst caused him to do this once, what is stopping him from doing it again? 

This case shows a way in which neuroscientific evidence can aid law in the courtroom. Weinstein’s MRIs and brain scans explained his actions to some extent. This helped the prosecutor in making his decision of what his punishment would look like. This is just one case in which neuroscience was used. The article “Law and Neuroscience” shows how the intersection between law and neuroscience could be beneficial to everyone involved. But they do acknowledge that there have been many debates over this as well.  

 

References: 

Jones, O.D., Marois, R., Farah, M.J., & Greely, H.T., (2013). Law and Neuroscience. The Journal of Neuroscience, 33(45), 17624–17630. https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.3254-13.2013

Carr, C. (2017). Did His Mind Make Him Do It? How Neuroscience Entered the Courtroom. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/books/review/brain-defense-kevin-davis.html