Document Type
Essay
Publication Date
Winter 2008
Publication Information
19 New Atlantis, Winter 2008, at 35.
Abstract
Can brain scans be used to determine whether a person is inclined toward criminality or violent behavior?
This question, asked by Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware at the hearing considering the nomination of John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States, illustrates the extent to which cognitive neuroscience - increasingly augmented by the growing powers of neuroimaging, the use of various technologies to directly or indirectly observe the structure and function of the brain - has captured the imagination of those who make, enforce, interpret, and study the law.
The attraction of the legal community to cognitive neuroscience is by no means unreciprocated. Cognitive neuroscientists have expressed profound interest in how their work might impact the law.
Practitioners of cognitive neuroscience seem particularly drawn to the criminal law; more specifically, they have evinced an interest in the death penalty. Indeed, a well-formed cognitive neuroscience project to reform capital sentencing has emerged from their work in the courtroom and their arguments in the public square. In the short term, cognitive neuroscientists seek to invoke cutting-edge brain imaging research to bolster defendants' claims that, although legally guilty, they do not deserve to die because brain abnormalities diminish their culpability. In the long term, cognitive neuroscientists aim to draw upon the tools of their discipline to embarrass, discredit, and ultimately overthrow retribution as a distributive justification for punishment.
Recommended Citation
O. C. Snead,
Neuroimaging and Capital Punishment,
19 New Atlantis, Winter 2008, at 35..
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/1677
Comments
This essay is adapted from an article that appeared in the New York University Law Review.