Folha de Sao Paulo, Sunday, February 28, 2010
Neuroscience goes to trial in the USLawyer estimates that more than a hundred lawyers have used resonance imaging to try to mitigate pain of their customers
Academic community acquits controversial use of brain mapping in moot court during scientific meeting in the US
RAFAEL GARCIASPECIAL ENVOY TO SAN DIEGO
The use of brain mapping images on judgments is proliferating in the United States, and legal experts estimate that more than a hundred lawyers have already resorted to them. Scientists are so concerned about the use of this technology -and abuso- who decided to put itself in the dock.Fearful that neuroimaging studies are being misinterpreted by judges and juries, researchers conducted a mock trial for a week to test the responsiveness of the academy to this practice. In the end, the new "forensic neuroscience" was acquitted.The verdict, decided by a large "jury" of university professors, students and journalists, was issued in San Diego during the meeting of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). All followed the trial of a fictional crime in which the defense evoked magnetic resonance imaging as witnesses.If the process was fictional, but the characters that were interpreted very real. Who conducted the simulation was Judge Luis Rodriguez, the Superior Court of California. Representing the prosecution was the jurist Henry Greely, who enrolled neuroscientist Michael Rafii, UCSD (University of California at San Diego), as a witness. Have attorney Robert Knaier, defense, called another expert of the entity, James Brewer, to help your hypothetical client.The accused in question was a man who had committed murder proven: used a frying pan to kill his ex-girlfriend after failing in an attempt to resume. The defense of the mission was to try to free him of intentional murder charge and prove that he did not actually premeditate the crime, ridding it of the death penalty. An extensive brain damage in the frontal cortex -mostrada by magnetically resonance would be the proof that he had no mental capacity to think about the crime before committing it.
Open sessionThe scientific debate, which looked more like court of film, packed one of the largest auditoriums of the meeting's most important science of the country. The session began with the defense lawyer's complaint. According Knaier argued, the brain injury of the accused made him impulsive against his will and prevented him to plan his actions."There are theories that relate lesions in the frontal lobes with personality changes," said Brewer, their expert witness. "This goes back to 1948, with the famous case of Phineas Gage, a railroad that survived a severe lesion in the frontal lobes. He became, however, unpredictable, irreverent, impulsive and eventually lost his job."The attempt to prove that the accused in question would have the same Gage profile, however, was challenged by the technical witness the "prosecution". "It's almost impossible to tell something of the personality of the individual only on the basis of neuroimaging," said Rafii scientist. "In our clinical cognitive neurology, we have seen tests resonance showing abnormal brain structures in people without symptoms, and have seen normal structures in people with symptoms."The fact that the injury was only a hypothesis for the accused's behavior, however, was reversed in favor of the defense, which rejected the burden of proof. "It is the State that must prove, beyond a reasonable margin of doubt, that the killing was premeditated or reflected by the accused," he said Knaier. "If the witness of the prosecution recognizes that an injury to the cortex" may "affect behavior, their claim is still within the margin of doubt."
Verdict
Apparently convinced by the lawyer's argument, the audience played the jury at the end of the event, pronouncing the innocent accused of murder in the first degree (premeditated), the most serious crime. As considered that at least the "intention" of killing existed, the man just sentenced to second-degree murder.Greely, who represented the defeated promoter, said that in reality it is not against the use of neuroscience in court, but caution is needed. "There is research showing that totally ridiculous and illogical statements if accompanied by phrases like" science says "a" neuroscience shows "are generally accepted by most lay people," he said.For Greely, a court must weigh the advantage of technically complex evidence against their costs. One must consider the time spent with technical explanations to the jury, in addition to price tests such as MRI, which are not cheap. And neuroscientists witnesses, he says, are not available anywhere.
Source : supremoemdebate
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