A Primer on Criminal Law and Neuroscience: A contribution of the Law and Neuroscience Project, supported by the MacArthur Foundation
Stephen J. Morse and Adina L. Roskies
Abstract
This reference volume is the first devoted to comprehensively providing criminal lawyers and judges with the current, basic neuroscientific and legal knowledge they will need to evaluate arguments that are based on neuroscientific evidence. Each chapter is written by noted experts. A general introduction first provides a framework for thinking about the relation of neuroscience to the criminal law. Three chapters address basics of the brain and nervous system and the investigative techniques neuroscientists use to study the brain and its relation to behavior, with one chapter devoted to neuroi ... More
This reference volume is the first devoted to comprehensively providing criminal lawyers and judges with the current, basic neuroscientific and legal knowledge they will need to evaluate arguments that are based on neuroscientific evidence. Each chapter is written by noted experts. A general introduction first provides a framework for thinking about the relation of neuroscience to the criminal law. Three chapters address basics of the brain and nervous system and the investigative techniques neuroscientists use to study the brain and its relation to behavior, with one chapter devoted to neuroimaging. The legal chapters begin with a survey of the scientific evidence questions that the admissibility of neuroscience evidence will present. Other legal chapters address “mind-reading,” that is the ability of neuroscience to detect lying or the content of thoughts, criminal responsibility, competence and prediction, juvenile delinquency, and addiction. Each addresses in detail the relevance of neuroscience to the applicable doctrines and assesses what is known at present. All sections of the book may be consulted independently by readers seeking specific information about a discrete topic. A final chapter speculates modestly about how possible future advances in neuroscientific knowledge may shape legal practice and doctrine more generally.
Keywords:
Criminal law,
neuroscientific evidence,
neuroimaging,
"mind-reading," criminal responsibility,
delinquency,
addiction
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199859177 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199859177.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Stephen J. Morse, editor
University of Pennsylvania
Adina L. Roskies, editor
Dartmouth
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