Asking for a friend…
But seriously, this is a real question. For example, several years ago, Herbert Weinstein tossed his wife out the window of their Manhattan apartment, after killing her, following an argument. He was well known to be a non violent person, and there was really no good reason for him to murder his wife this way. But, it turns out, his prefrontal cortical region was compromised by a very large cyst. Weinstein was one of the first in recent decades to use an insanity style defense connected to neuro-imaging or other neurobiology showing a demonstrable, physical, brain problems.
The obverse is obvious, and somewhat ominous. If a person can commit a serious crime and then be shown to have done so because of something we can see pretty easily inside their brain, then couldn’t, even shouldn’t, we be scanning brains to identify people who might also throw Mrs. Weinstein out the window?
More pragmatically, what about the link between damage to brains in sports or war, and behavior, treatment, and the simple problem of helping people who got messed up because we like to watch them smash into each other on the gladiator’s field, or we wish them to defend our nation on an actual battle field?
Author Kevin Davis notes:
Among the growing number of cases involving neuroscientific evidence are those that involve combat veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq as defendants. The attorney for Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who was charged with killing 17 civilians in Afghanistan, has said his client suffered a traumatic brain injury.
So many veterans are winding up in the courts that the National Veterans Foundation, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, created The Attorney’s Guide to Defending Veterans in Criminal Court, which covers traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
By the way, do you know who Melissa Fitzgerald is? She played Carol Fitzpatrick (aka “Carol”) on The West Wing — CJ’s assistant. Go to The West Wing Weekly podcast, find episode 1.10, and listen to an interview with her about veteran law and veteran’s courts.
Anyway, Kevin Davis, quoted above, is coming out with a book called The Brain Defense: Murder in Manhattan and the Dawn of Neuroscience in America’s Courtrooms
Shortly after Weinstein was arrested, an MRI revealed a cyst the size of an orange on his brain’s frontal lobe, the part of the brain that governs judgment and impulse control. Weinstein’s lawyer seized on that discovery, arguing that the cyst had impaired Weinstein’s judgment and that he should not be held criminally responsible for the murder. It was the first case in the United States in which a judge allowed a scan showing a defendant’s brain activity to be admitted as evidence to support a claim of innocence.
The Weinstein case marked the dawn of a new era in America’s courtrooms, raising complex and often troubling questions about how we define responsibility and free will, how we view the purpose of punishment, and how strongly we are willing to bring scientific evidence to bear on moral questions. Davis brings to light not only the intricacies of the Weinstein case but also the broader history linking brain injuries and aberrant behavior, from the bizarre stories of Phineas Gage and Charles Whitman, perpetrator of the 1966 Texas Tower massacre, to the role that brain damage may play in violence carried out by football players and troubled veterans of America’s twenty-first century wars. The Weinstein case opened the door for a novel defense that continues to transform the legal system: Criminal lawyers are increasingly turning to neuroscience and introducing the effects of brain injuries—whether caused by trauma or by tumors, cancer, or drug or alcohol abuse—and arguing that such damage should be considered in determining guilt or innocence, the death penalty or years behind bars. As he takes stock of the past, present and future of neuroscience in the courts, Davis offers a powerful account of its potential and its hazards.
The book is coming out in late February, but you can preorder it here
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There already is a defense for this in the criminal courts.
It is the insanity defense:
“The M’Naghten rule (pronounced, and sometimes spelled, McNaughton) is any variant of the 1840s jury instruction in a criminal case when there is a defense of insanity, “that every man is to be presumed to be sane, and… that to establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.”
The question would be did the person know what they were doing and if so, did they know it was wrong.
Congratulations, RickA. By that definition you are not insane, for you know what you’re doing and you know it’s wrong.
Rightness, wrongness and morality is in the eyes of the beholder.
I personally think it is wrong to make everything more expensive, for very little if any gain.
The cost exceeds the benefit.
Of course, I recognize that reasonable minds can differ.
In my philosophy, I allow for that and do not demonize those who disagree with me.
Bottom line – I do not agree that my position is wrong.
Or his entire head is a tumor…
“Rightness, wrongness and morality is in the eyes of the beholder.”
So there’s no such thing as crime.
Why cry so much about Steyn’s libel being in court, then? It’s just Mann’s morality, and therefore you cannot insist it’s wrong of him to do so.
Wow #5:
I never did say it was wrong for Mann to sue.
I said I think he is going to lose.
Because of how I think the law will be applied to the facts.
Of course there is crime.
A law is passed – without regard to rightness, wrongness and morality – it just is.
The law says you can only be married to one person at a time.
You marry two people – you are guilty of bigamy.
It doesn’t matter whether that law is right, wrong, moral or immoral, in your opinion – society can still apply the law to the facts and find you guilty of the crime of bigamy.
But you can still be of the opinion that bigamy is ok and moral.
Me – I can only afford one wife.
“I never did say it was wrong for Mann to sue.”
In your opinion. I have mine.
I never said you said it was wrong, I asked why you cried about it so much.
I have not cried about it.
I have just explained to you why I think Mann will lose.
And corrected your legal errors.
The defense is usually an insanity or mental competency defense.
Greg #10:
Yes.
It depends on the state.
But a lot of states require that the person not be capable of knowing the difference between right and wrong.
So if you throw your wife out the window because you are mentally ill – but know it is wrong while you are doing it (say because a voice told you to do it) – you are probably still going to jail (or maybe a mental hospital).
“I have not cried about it.”
That’s your opinion. Mine is different. 200 posts and your own claims indicate otherwise.
“But a lot of states require that the person not be capable of knowing the difference between right and wrong.”
That;s your opinion. You’re wrong.
You can forgive anyone of any thing, don’t care! The real question is can it be determined if his behavior is now ‘normal’ or could the damage cause more incidents? Still messed up? stays locked up, seems OK? then let go!
Hmmm, disappearing posts again. Too many links?
http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/852034627793/my-brain-made-me-do-it
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/my-brain-made-me-do-it
One link is still disappearing. Look for “My Brain made me do it” at putlockers.
Have not read the book, but it doesn’t sound like anything new here. In clinical psychiatry organic brain disease is commonplace and violence crimes are rarely defended with a not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) defense even when it is apparent that that the mental illness was a proximate cause of the violence.
Very difficult to prove that an arachnoid cyst (the problem lesion mentioned in the post) has any effect on behavior even with a mass effect on the brain.
There’s also rather famously an example of a man who raped a woman while sleepwalking.