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Neuroscience-based Psychiatric Assessments of Criminal Responsibility: Beyond Self-Report?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2020

GERBEN MEYNEN
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Abstract

Many legal systems have an insanity defense, which means that although a person has committed a crime, she is not held criminally responsible for the act. A challenge with regard to these assessments is that forensic psychiatrists have to rely to a considerable extent on the defendant's self-report. Could neuroscience be a way to make these evaluations more objective? The current value of neuroimaging in insanity assessments will be examined. The author argues that neuroscience can be valuable for diagnosing neurological illnesses, rather than psychiatric disorders. Next, he discusses to what extent neurotechnological 'mind reading' techniques, if they would become available in the future, could be useful to get beyond self-report in forensic psychiatry.

Keywords

insanity defenseforensic psychiatryneuroimagingneurological illnesspsychiatric disorders
Type
Departments and Columns
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , July 2020 , pp. 446 - 458
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Neuroethics Now welcomes articles addressing the ethical application of neuroscience in research and patient care, as well as its impact on society.

References

Notes

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2. Not in all jurisdictions are behavioral experts allowed to express their opinion on the ‘ultimate legal issue’ of the defendant’s sanity; they may have to restrict themselves to what lies in the realm of the behavioral sciences.

3. A related issue concerns the theoretical question: Does neuroscience disprove free will and, if so, what are the consequences for criminal responsibility? I will not address this topic here, see note 1, Meynen 2016.

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6. Model Penal Code (American Law Institute 1985).

7. On the (general) matters about the insanity defense discussed in this section, see also note 1, Meynen, 2016.

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20. Of course, many people speak the truth in the courtroom as well.

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31. See also note 4, Gkotsi et al. 2019.

32. On this and what follows, see note 11, Meynen 2019; and note 1, Meynen 2016.

33. See also note 23, Meynen 2016.

34. And clearly, there is some overlap, e.g., regarding Tourette’s syndrome and neurodegenerative disorders.

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