Brain Scans Used In Murder Sentencing 328
sciencehabit writes "For what may be the first time, fMRI scans of brain activity have been used as evidence in the sentencing phase of a murder trial. Defense lawyers for an Illinois man convicted of raping and killing a 10-year-old girl used the scans to argue that their client should be spared the death penalty because he has a brain disorder. Some experts say the scans are irrelevant because they were taken 20+ years after the crimes were committed. Others point out that the scans are only being considered because the sentencing phase of a trial has less stringent standards about evidence than those used to establish a defendant's innocence or guilt." In the Illinois case, the fMRI defense didn't help the defendant, whom a jury sentenced to death.
Capital Punishment (Score:3, Interesting)
Nature versus Nurture (Score:2, Interesting)
So, brain scans of a criminal defendant will not carry any weight. If his environment (e. g., an abusive childhood) did not cause him to commit the crime, then he must have done it out of his own free will. Since he "freely and deliberately" committed the crime, then he shall be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
That is how American justice works. How does justice work in Europe?
Illinois- Death Penalty Without the Death (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Capital Punishment (Score:4, Interesting)
Capital punishment can encourage heinous crimes. If a suspect has already committed a crime that warrants capital punishment, then that suspect will have nothing to lose by committing more crimes.
I'm not convinced that most violent criminals are worried about what they have to lose. Take armed robbery for instance. People who hold up convenience stores rarely walk away with more than $100. For that marginal gain they are risking 10 to 20 years of their freedom, more if they used a weapon in the commission of their crime. No sane person could look at the risk to reward ratio of armed robbery and conclude that it's a worthwhile endeavor -- yet people still engage in such behavior.
I don't think the point of prison and/or the death penalty is to deter crime. Clearly neither one is effective at doing so. The point is to extract the debt that is owed to society for such behavior. The only method of payment for such debt is to require that you forfeit some of your limited time on this planet back to society.
In the case of the death penalty, if your crimes are heinous enough (treason, murder, kidnapping and rape should all qualify IMHO) then I don't see any problems with society putting you out of our collective misery. My only issue with the death penalty is the fact that no justice system is 100% perfect, although I'm not convinced that spending your entire life behind bars for a crime that you didn't commit is anymore humane than being executed for it.
Re:Capital Punishment (Score:3, Interesting)
"We wouldn't need capital punishment if we'd lock violent criminals up for the rest of their miserable lives. The vast majority of first-time murderers already had violent criminal records. Seems to me that if we kept them behind bars where they belong that we'd have a much lower murder rate."
Nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense. Arguments like this are made by politicians only for the purpose of attracting stupid people.
It is nonsense because it will never, ever happen. The same people who cry out for prisons and law and order also scream for no new taxes. People will NEVER pay for the long term lockup of violent offenders. Hell, the USA already has one of the highest imprisonment rates among Western countries. The law and order folks will balk when it comes time to settle up the bill for increased imprisonment. It's all pure jive talk.
Get real.
Re:Capital Punishment (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great defence! (Score:5, Interesting)
Some time later, it starts up again. They check, and the tumor has partially regrown. Tumor is again resected, and patient is again fine.
In a case like that, there seems to be a compelling argument to be made that the defendant's behavior is a medical problem rather than a criminal one(and a treatable medical problem, not an "well, enjoy the secure ward for the rest of your life" medical problem). If, though, your plea is basically "But, but, this MRI shows exactly the part of my brain that makes me a violent shitbag..." That seems fairly useless to you(though it might be helpful in the long term, if it helps us figure out how to stop producing people like you). Obviously, with sufficient scientific knowledge, it will be possible to identify the anatomic basis of your behavior. So what?
Okay, now just re-focus. (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't care to waste time on the three endless debates being revisited here. (Well, sort of revisited. It's such an old and tired set of problems that nobody here is even giving a full effort). Capital punishment, nature v.s. nurture, and the morality of punishing a natural-born killer.
Don't care. None of that will be solved here or today.
What I AM interested in is the use of medical technology to detect psychopathy in people. We have the technology right now. I want to see a reliable and open system of testing introduced so that we can filter people who are climbing power ladders. -We could have avoided the whole last ten years of bloodshed and economic ruin if we had a simple testing system in place for recognizing psychopaths. What we do with them after this is fodder for those endless debates, and that's fine. History will sort it out. I just think it would be nice if we stopped giving leadership roles to reptiles. You know, so we can stop living in a world where corruption and mass-murder are considered normal? That'd sure be nice.
I want to see this happen. I want to see this happen. I want to see this happen. It's my intention to live in a world where everybody wakes up.
-FL
Re:Capital Punishment (Score:3, Interesting)
What I would be very interested to see studied, though, is whether getting the death penalty, because of its high profile and controversial nature, actually improves the quality of representation, access to appeals, and the like. The ideal comparison would be between otherwise similar groups of inmates, some of whom got death, and some of whom got life or various long terms.
Does being on death row attract the attention of more useful advocates or greater judicial scrutiny than does a life sentence or very long fixed term?
Re:Capital Punishment (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Capital Punishment (Score:5, Interesting)
I was just reading Freakonomics and they make the case that part of that decline was also because of Row vs. Wade and the greater availability of abortion. They say the evidence supports the idea that Row vs. Wade made abortion available to women in poverty and that their aborted children were among the group that would have been most likely to become violent criminals. They do quite a few comparisons between states that legalized abortion at different times and other factors to show this.
I'm not sure I accept it, but it's an interesting argument.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Capital Punishment (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great defence! (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine a kiddy fiddler of the worst order. He's molested scores of children, caused untold harm to them, etc. Now imagine that, on the day that he's caught, they can for whatever reason clinically prove that he's 'cured' and would be constitutionally unable to re-offend. Should he go free? I imagine the response would be a universal and emphatic "no, of course not!" The only motive for incarcerating or executing him at this point would be revenge.
Re:Capital Punishment (Score:3, Interesting)
It's worse than that, too "hard" punishment for a "minor" crime can push people towards committing worse crimes when the difference in sentence isn't too big. A "three strikes" law in a country without a death penalty would basically mean that you should always kill the witnesses when you've been in jail two times and commit another crime, because you will be sentenced for life if you get caught because it's your third time anyway and murder (sans death penalty) means life anyway.
So why not kill the people you rob? It's only logical to do it, simply to reduce the probability that the police gets a lead.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Great defence! (Score:3, Interesting)
Stephen J. Gould said something about how any evidence that suggests nurture over nature, could usually be used just as well to suggest a nature over nurture.
It turns out that nature vs nurture is a false dichotomy. For example, there have been genes identified in rats that are ONLY turned on by specific maternal behaviors.
So genes matter, but environment is at least as important. Without the environment that "turns on" a gene, nothing happens.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Great defence! (Score:2, Interesting)
That's the flip side of what I've been saying about bleeding heart conservatives who are adamantly for the death penalty. When I die it will most likely be horrible - from heart disease, cancer (a truly horrible way to die,) [slashdot.org] alsheimers (shudder), ALS, accident... Meanwhile someone who rapes and tortures a child to death is painlessly "put to sleep" like a beloved pet.
I say keep him locked up for life, let him think about what he's done, not knowing when or how he's going to die. I don't mind my tax money going for keeping murderers locked up.
Re:Great defence! (Score:3, Interesting)
But that doesn't explain Amy and Tami, who I mentioned in my slashdot journal yesterday. Here's the relevant part (no need to read the whole journal)
Amy's mother is a schitzophrenic homeless drug addict, her biological father died a couple of years ago from MSRA. From what she's said, he was as bad off as her mother. Aside from her alcohol problem and clinical depression, Amy's completely normal.