CAN A MRI HELP YOU GET A FAIR COURT VERDICT?

CAN A  MRI HELP YOU GET A FAIR VERDICT IN COURT?

How can you get a fair verdict in the courts?   MRi imaging trials are now trying to determine how you behave and how you make decisions. Lawyers are aware of this evidence and are pushing for it in the courtroom.    These MRIs can sway juries.  Pictures seem to have an aura of objectivity beyond what is justified.

Brain experts, legal scholars and philosophers are studying how experimental brain findings can change traditional ideas about guilt, responsibility and choice.  Neural scans, brain wave memory probes and other controversial techniques are being introduced in criminal proceedings. Two firms now market controversial neural lie detectors based on magnetic resonance imaging. 

 Decision making is taken for granted like breathing. Our brain cells weigh objective legal ideas of right and wrong.  You want fair, unbiased, sensible. and reasonable decisions.  But do you think the same when you have no stake in enforcing a punishment decision on someone accused of a crime?

 The MRI shows many parts of the brain involved in decision making.   The right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex becomes very active but so do all the brain emotional circuits.

These images from sophisticated signal processing can become manipulated computer creations.  The image that forms is dependent on the colors you pick, the task involved, and the inferences you make.  Emotions of rejection, anxiety, romance, fear, erotic stirring, virtue, humor and happiness all show different images.   These MRIs are found worthless and poorly analyzed.

IS A MRI A PAIN METER?

Measurement of pain seen on MRIs are also close to being ready for the courtroom. Pain detections are likely to be the first MRI applications in the courts because neuroscience of pain is fairly understood.  Pain is an issue in half of the court cases with personal injury.  Billions of dollars are at state.  If you have real pain you often cant prove it and often can fake it.   Even if the MRI can’t provide a perfect objective measurement of pain, it is better than the alternatives.

Pain sensitivity varies from one person to the next.  Psychological factors as anxiety and attention focusing on pain can make brain images worse, while distractions can take the edge off.  There is a broad overlap in the brain regions activated by real and imagined pain.  Activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and the right insula correlate well with pain intensity and duration of chronic pain.

RULE 403

Judges can now disallow relevant evidence if it is likely to mislead or prejudice the jury,  (Rule 403 of Fed Rules of Evidence.)   This rule is invoked to exclude evidence from polygraphs on the ground the public sees the test as more valid than they really are.  The same logic could apply to MRi evidence.

COMMENTS

What impact will neuroscience evidence have in criminal law in the near future?  Since brain imaging had its debut 15 years ago it still can’t be trusted as courtroom evidence.  Images look like  photographs of a brain at work. However, you can get very different images from the same test, depending on what the experimenter does.

Many legal issues are raised on the use of MRis in the court room.  The jury is still out on when the MRI imaging of pain and guilt will enter the legal system.  But it certainly will not be long.

Visit Dangers of MRI blog Jan 13, 2009 @ www.drneedles.com

Sources: Science Jan 9, 2009,  Legal implications of neuroscience (Neuron) Dec. 2008, Marlios

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