Our laws have not kept up with new discoveries in neuroscience, meaning that a jury could declare someone guilty when a crime isn’t necessarily his (or her) fault. How should insights about the brain affect the course of a criminal trial, from the arguments in a courtroom to the issuing of a sentence?
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Not everyone realizes that a new law has been passed that allows the military to detain American citizens indefinitely without a trial, the way it sends foreigners to Guantanamo now. Even though the military and covert agencies say they don’t want this kind of power, congress passed the bill anyway. Obama threatened to veto it, but let it pass with some modifications. We could be refilling Guantanamo at the same time we are trying to empty it.
On the Wired website, Spencer Ackerman writes: "So despite the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a right to trial, the Senate bill would let the government lock up any citizen it swears is a terrorist, without the burden of proving its case to an independent judge."
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Do better looking defendants stay out of jail? – It may be the last place you want to be judged on your looks, but in a court of law it pays to be attractive. If you’re not good looking, get your lawyer to use your brain scan to prove you’re telling the truth.
A new study has found that unattractive defendants are 22% more likely to be convicted, and tend to get hit with longer, harsher sentences, with an average of 22 months longer in prison recommended by the study’s participants.
Researcher Justin Gunnell says, “22 months may not seem like a lot to an outsider, but I guarantee that to the person serving the sentence it will seem like a lot.”
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