This is not a new subject for criminal lawyers, and already was debated for some time by psychologists. The influence of neuroscience in the American judicial system has grown in recent years, and apparently here to stay: the most famous defendant's time in the US can turn a neurological study object during his trial.
Robert Bales, 38, US Army sergeant who killed 16 civilians in Afghanistan two weeks ago in a rage, must resort to neuroscience as defense. This week, in an interview with CNN, attorney John Henry Browne suggested that his client would not have full control over your emotions, and your outbreak of violence may have been caused by mental problems resulting from a concussion or war trauma.
"We know he had a concussion injury by the head, and we also know that he had suffered a slight leg injury," said the defender, after talking to the first customer. "He did not seem to be aware of some of the facts about which I spoke to him, which made me worried about his mental state, obviously."
Bales already returned to the US and will be tried for murder. Browne has not presented its defense line entirely, but has made it clear that you can try to assign the sergeant violence outbreak his brain injury.
It may seem an exaggeration relates concussion violent behavior, but such cases have already a record in the medical literature for a century and a half. The best known is the Phineas Gage, a railroad worker who survived a severe lesion in the frontal lobe of his brain in 1848. Doctors at the time tell that after regaining consciousness, the patient described as a person -before afável- became rude, impatient, aggressive and acquired psychopathy traits.
Gage's brain study after his death became a landmark in the history of neuroscience, confirming the importance of the frontal cerebral cortex as the "executive" brain area. It is a region which, among other things, is essential to control the impulsivity.
As the brain injury Gage was extensive (in the accident, a metal bar through his brain and tore one of his eyes), doctors do not need any Tecnolgia to show it. Studies attempting to correlate minor head injury with behavioral changes, however, are more recent, and in most cases require the use of MRI machines. The difficulty of using it in court is that there are cases where there is an injury, but there is no change in behavior.
A survey of the jurist Henry Greely of Stanford University, estimates that over one hundred trials in the US had already registered similar arguments by 2010. According to him, this opens up a much broader debate on law, a discussion about how much you can hold harmless a person to evoke characteristics of their brain anatomy. All our thoughts, after all, are correlated to a physical state of our brains, is this a temporary state or not, whether we are considered mentally ill or not.
Chances are, Browne, attorney Robert Bales, appeals for Neuroscience in his defense strategy. Besides mentioning the concussion, he can claim that the sergeant was suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) after witnessing a colleague lost his leg in battle. Alcoholism may also have been a factor.
It is curious that the cranial concussion and post-traumatic stress are gaining prominence in attempts to explain what was going through the mind of Bales during his rage. A concussion is a type of injury considered "signature" of soldiers who passed through Iraq and Afghanistan. Had PTSD is the most common psychiatric disorder among veterans, affecting up to be one-fifth of them, depending on the conflict experience?
Personally, I think these problems should rather be taken to court, but do not believe that neuroscience and psychiatry will offer indisputable arguments in all cases. It may serve as a mitigating in some, and may be used only as disinformation weapons in others. As doubt plays in favor of the defendant, even scientific claims with a low degree of certainty exert an influence on a verdict.
To exempt fully bales of guilt for their actions, however, would have to conclude that he was completely devoid of free will. Did he have the choice not to commit an attack when the fury went to his head? It is not a simple matter, and neuroscience will not respond to it alone. To believe or not to believe in unrestricted free will, ultimately, is a philosophical dilemma. It will be a choice that juries and judges will have to do.
Source : teoriadetudo.blogfolha.uol.com.br
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