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The Use Of Neuroscience Evidence In Criminal Proceedings, John B. Meixner Jr.

Scholarly Works

While law and neuroscience has been an increasingly popular topic in academic discourse, until now, little systematic research had examined how neuroscience evidence has actually been used in court. Do courts actually admit and consider evidence of brain trauma that might indicate that an individual did not have the capacity to achieve the mental state required for conviction of particular crime? Do they use such evidence to consider the relative culpability for the crime in the event of conviction? Do they consider or understand brain scan data? For much of the life of this infant field, we have only been …