The UK Human Rights Blog has a nice post regarding the December report by The Royal Society that covers a lot of area on new findings in neuroscience that effect the law - such topics as risk and memory which includes reliability of witness testimony, deception, pain and neuropathology.
The report has been very popular given its suggestion to raise the age of criminal responsibility - which is 10 years old in the UK and 6-12 years old in the US, given there’s a ”huge individual variability in the timing and patterning of brain development” (via) and that “…some parts of the brain are not fully mature “until at least the age of 20”. (via)
…this is important to get right; children should not be blamed for actions if they are not intellectually capable of understanding or controlling them.
Some of you chalk this up to DUH research, but in my limited experience (accepted proposals re: forensic psychology/juveniles/law by UK universities that were not even on the table for discussion in the US 7-10 yrs ago) it has seems to me that the UK is slightly more open to discourse surrounding the manifestation of research to policy. It follows that neurolaw would be a natural next endeavor.
All the talk of mind-reading and predetermination of criminal behaviour sounds like science fiction, but brain science is now sufficiently advanced – and advancing rapidly – that the legal system must do more to incorporate the lessons it offers.
And, in many ways, this is already happening. The report refers to 722 US criminal cases in which neurological or behavioral genetics evidence has been introduced in criminal cases on behalf of a criminal defendants in the past 7 years. This includes 449 murder case; things have clearly moved on a bit since the “Twinkie defence“.
Shout out to legal twinks
So whether lawyers like it or not, neuro-scientific evidence is being increasingly used in courts, and it would therefore be sensible to learn more about it, and quickly.
You know I’m a fierce advocate babbling for years about the need of increased collaboration between neuroscientists and JDs, in research AS WELL AS in practice. If you don’t feel like basking in my archives, the report offers a great list of recommendations on page six. Otherwise (I’m looking at you, blog post by a legal type person at the Puffington Post that I’m not even going to link b/c it’s so ridiculous and infested with inaccuracies), continue to scoff at the inevitable, translate it into a need to defend your profession from intellectual innovation and enjoy your stay in Ye Ole Crazy Towne in the dark ages. But don’t cry about it, it’s about refining… not redesigning.
