Brain scans presented as evidence in courts have had mixed results on legal proceedings. Some juries and judges have been swayed by the images; others less so. Below is a short list of prominent cases in which neuroscience played a part.
United States vs. John W. Hinckley Jr. 1982 - One of the very first appearances of brain scans in court occurred during one of the most famous trials of the last century. Lawyers defending John Hinckley, who in 1981 attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, presented a CT scan to buttress evidence of Hinckley's insanity. While the scan's role in the verdict isn't precisely known, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
People of New York vs. Weinstein 1992 - Lawyers for Herbert Weinstein, a 64-year-old Manhattan advertising executive who admitted to strangling his wife and throwing her off a high-rise, successfully argued that a positron emission tomographic PET scan showing an arachnoid cyst should be admitted as evidence to explain that Weinstein could not be held criminally responsible for his actions. The prosecutors were reported to have been worried about a jury seeing the visual evidence and settled on a lesser charge, manslaughter, on the final day of jury selection.
Harrington vs. State of Iowa 2003 - In an amazing reversal, Iowa released Terry Harrington, who served 25 years for the 1977 murder of a parking lot security guard, after his lawyer Mary Kennedy got a controversial "brain fingerprinting" technique admitted in court. Advocates of brain fingerprinting believe the technique can show when someone has a genuine memory of an event by identifying a particular brain activation pattern. In this case, the fingerprinting supposedly showed that Harrington didn't remember or know crucial details of the crime he was convicted of. Although most experts don't attribute Harrrington's exoneration to the brain fingerprinting, a precedent was set for its future use in court.
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