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Over break I had the pleasure of stumbling across a FASCINATING article in March 11th, 2007 issue of The New York Times Magazine. My father had left the magazine, whose cover read “Neurolaw” in bold letters, on the kitchen counter (this article was also referenced by Professor Grobstein in last week's forum). As I looked closer, I was able to see that the entire title read “The Trials of Neurolaw: How Advances in Brain Science Could Transform Our Legal System.” The article was packed with information, and will be the topic of my next web paper.

Although I could write an extensive paper on the article, I will attempt to discuss it in short. The article spoke about the use of neuroscience in the court of law. Due to somewhat new technology, brain scans are now being utilized in criminal trials. Although this is interesting in all cases, it is especially interesting in capital cases, when many philosophical questions arise. Does it matter whether a man killed his wife because mother because he had an abnormal cyst pressing on his arachnoid membrane? Are abnormal brain scans equivalent to acting under duress or suffering from a serious rationality defect in the court of law? Combining these questions with the fact that many scientists are still uncomfortable with how new and untested the brain scan technology is, utilizing it in the court of law is a debated discussion.

Will we force witnesses and suspects to get brain scans? Will jury consultants use brain scans in jury selection? In the future, will we use brain scans to predict actions and crimes?

This article began to scare me as it reminded me of a recent movie called Minority Report. The films tagline was “What would you do if you were accused of a murder, you had not committed…yet?” and followed the adventure of a detective who was accused of thinking about committing a crime he was not planning on committing. Science, similarly to everything else in life, cannot be perfect 100% of time. However, I was comforted to know that a coalition of social scientists, psychologists, lawyers, and biologists have all joined forces to fight for the ethical use of brain scans.

Again, I apologize for the brevity of this post. My webpaper promises to go into more detail.