JUDGES in the US are waking up to the potential misuse of brain-scanning technologies. Last month, Judge John Kennedy of the New Jersey Judiciary rallied 50 of his peers to discuss protecting courts from junk neuroscience.
In September, an Indian court jailed a murder suspect for life, partly on the basis of a brain scan. Meanwhile of Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, is one of several US companies that claim to be able to show whether someone is lying using a functional MRI brain scan. Ethical issues aside, many neuroscientists say the scans have not been tested rigorously enough to be admitted in court, and that they could produce false positives.
Now judges are coming to the same conclusion. Kennedy鈥檚 gathering, at the New Jersey Judicial College in Teaneck, agreed that brain scans, if accompanied by the opinion of a medical professional, can reveal if a person is in pain or mentally competent to stand trial, but cannot be used to determine a state of guilt.
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鈥淪cans can reveal if a person is in pain or mentally competent to stand trial, but not guilt鈥�
No judge in the US has yet accepted fMRI scans in a trial, but Kennedy expects attempts to admit them to increase. 鈥淲e鈥檙e taking a peek over the horizon to see what鈥檚 coming,鈥� he says.
Such considerations are spurred in part by the 鈥淒aubert standard鈥� 鈥� a Supreme Court ruling that extended a judge鈥檚 authority to challenge the credibility of scientific evidence in court.
