Neuroscience in the Courtroom: An International Concern
2012; Routledge; Volume: 53; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0043-5589
Autores Tópico(s)Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations
ResumoTABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. A BRIEF HISTORY OF NEUROSCIENCE IN THE COURTROOM A. The Two-Fold Science of Lie Detection B. Past Uses of Neuroscience in the Law C. Recent Attempts to Admit Brain Scan Evidence in Court II. GROWING INTERNATIONAL CONCERN A. Predecessors of fMRI and Brain Fingerprinting B. Neuroscience Conferences Galore III. INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS A. Bioethics and Neuroethics on the Same Continuum B. Right to a Fair Trial C. Cognitive Liberty: An Extension of a Privacy Right CONCLUSION A human being ... is a part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. (1) INTRODUCTION Before it is seen a legitimate right, cognitive liberty will cease to exist. (2) In June 2008, India became the first country in the world to convict a defendant of murder on the basis of a brain scan indicating that the defendant, Aditi Sharma, had knowledge, or memory, of the murder in question. (3) The brain scan convinced the court that Sharma possessed a specific memory of murdering her fiance, as opposed to ... [merely] hearing the details of his murder from another person. (4) Sharma, who consented to the test, sat in a room wearing a skullcap with thirty wires hooked to it that measured her brain activity in response to the following tape-recorded statements pertaining to her relationship with her fiance: had an affair with Udit.... I got arsenic from the shop. I called I gave him the sweets mixed with arsenic. The sweets killed Udit. (5) The test--an EEG--showed Sharma's brain lighting up in various colors during the reading of these statements, allegedly proving her culpability by indicating specific knowledge of her fiance's murder. (6) Within six months of Sharma's conviction, an Indian court used the same testing to find two more defendants guilty of murder based on conclusive findings of experiential knowledge. (7) The Indian court's decision not only to use neuroscientific evidence in the courtroom but also to employ it a basis upon which to convict defendants of murder sent shock waves throughout the scientific and legal communities. (8) The court's decision prompted substantial debate to whether reliance on this evidence was appropriate, with an overwhelming majority of commentators believing that without more proof of the technology's reliability, the court's willingness to rely on it was unsoundly premature. (9) Although the United States has yet to admit evidence of brain scans in either civil or proceedings for lie-detection purposes, scholars suggest that a courtroom display, in which a defendant is connected to electrodes and has his brain scan projected onto a screen for the jury to assess his truth-telling capacity and experiential knowledge of an event, is not far from occurring. (10) American neuroscientist Michael Gazzinga has gone so far to predict that this new technology will eventually dominate the entire legal system. (11) Although Gazzinga's theorized domination has yet to occur domestically, other countries have shown interest in experimenting with neuroscience. (12) Both Israel and Singapore, for instance, have commenced research on the possible uses of neuroscientific evidence. (13) Moreover, in May 2009, an Italian court of appeals became the first European court to use genetic information and brain-imaging scans to reduce a defendant's murder sentence, finding that the evidence indicated an unavoidable propensity toward violence. (14) The ever-widening international scope of neuroscientific research is unsurprising. The prospect of using science to analyze the criminal mind, including the histories and motivations of criminals, has obvious allure. …
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