Useful either as aggravation or as mitigation. So i have been doing an empirical study over the past six years now to look at, introduction in criminal cases. Its equivocal at best. It sometimes ends up being aggravating, but so far it hasnt panned out. Why hasnt it panned out . In part because science isnt quite there yet in that were able to see some things at a group level, but being able to talk bay single individual to look at their brain and to understand the extent to which their brain differences contribute to their behavior is very challenging. There just isnt enough data for that yet. You can say things at a groupwide level, though. And so kent mentioned earlier the case out of florida in the sue presume court graham in which the court said the juvenile should be treated differently with respect to life without the possibility of parole. The same happened in simmons where the court has treated juveniles differently. It may be the case we can start to do that. We can start to
More like people who we share particular brain structures with or people who we share particular environmental and brain similarities to. So we might need to start thinking about more particularized notions of conduct based on what we would expect of a person who has that type of brain structure who had these types of environmental factors and then start to think about how we want to treat them. Do we want to hold those people responsible for their actions or less responsible for their actions. Are there certain people who would be better subject to medical treatment instead of incarceration. Are there certainly people who we actually think would be better off in prison than not being in prison . Those types of decisions, i think, are going to be much more useful coming out of the neuroscience in the near term. In the long term, maybe we can get to the point where we make individualized decisionmaking, but so far it hasnt actually panned out. To all of you, do you think that it would b
File out of virginia, that the vast majority of people who have a tumor like that who may have preferences and desires to act on sexual impulses dont. Though we may not know in any particular case whether a person is an automoton, usually you can. The law has a bright line. It says if you engage in a wongful action, there is a defense called the insanity defense which never works as most of us know because we dont recognize it. Should we recognize it, thats an interesting question. Should we have a more robust concept of diminished responsibility in light of the understanding that some people have less control over their preferences and desires or should we have better sentencing schemes or get rid of incarceration and come up with different models of trying to deal with punishment once we understand people have wrong selections. I think those are all interesting questions, but is there free will . Well, the fact that almost everybody in the audience raised either their right or left h
Theoretically whether we can distinguish preferences from action, but whether we can identify those either before the fact or after the fact that had that inability to control their actions. Yeah, but what we do know is that even like the one that kent presented, the pedestriano file out of virginia, that the vast majority of people who have a tumor like that who may have preferences and desires to act on sexual impulses dont. Though we may not know in any particular case whether a person is an automoton, usually you can. The law has a bright line. It says if you engage in a wongful action, there is a defense called the insanity defense which never works as most of us know because we dont recognize it. Should we recognize it, thats an interesting question. Should we have a more robust concept of diminished responsibility in light of the understanding that some people have less control over their preferences and desires or should we have better sentencing schemes or get rid of incarcera
Difference. I teach constitutional law. The question i ask is, why is low i. Q. An excusing condition from the Death Penalty . If you go back to atkins and read the opinion, its on the basis of an eighth amendment analysis of the twin pillars of the criminal law which are retribution and deterrence. The court makes the judgment that low i. Q. Means that youre less responsible and less likely able to be deterred. So the twin pillars of the criminal law dont really apply. But im not sure that the psychologists who do psychological testing and i. Q. Or the neuroscientists have really connected up the constitutional reasons why because it may be that theyre substructures of i. Q. That are more relevant to the eighth amendment question. Its not a general i. Q. Score that is ultimately relevant. In fact, the California Supreme Court has dealt with exactly that question of what subscales might be constitutional relevant rather than the global i. Q. Score. One question here which i think is ve