Neurolaw in Australia: The Use of Neuroscience in Australian Criminal Proceedings
- PDF / 567,403 Bytes
- 16 Pages / 547.087 x 737.008 pts Page_size
- 57 Downloads / 178 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
Neurolaw in Australia: The Use of Neuroscience in Australian Criminal Proceedings Armin Alimardani
&
Jason Chin
Received: 31 May 2018 / Accepted: 17 December 2018 # Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract Recent research has detailed the use of neuroscience in several jurisdictions, but Australia remains a notable omission. To fill this substantial void we performed a systematic review of neuroscience in Australian criminal cases. The first section of this article reports the results of our review by detailing the purposes for which neuroscience is admitted into Australian criminal courts. We found that neuroscience is being admitted pre-trial (as evidence of fitness to stand trial), at trial (to support the defence of insanity and substantial impairment of the mind), and during sentencing. In the second section, we evaluate these applications. We generally found that courts admit neuroscience cautiously, and to supplement more well-established forms of evidence. Still, we found some instances in which the court seemed to misunderstand the neuroscience. These cases ranged from interpreting neuroscience as Bobjective^ evidence to admitting neuroscience when the same
non-neuroscientific psychiatric evidence would be inadmissible for being common sense. Furthermore, in some cases, neuroscientific evidence presents a double-edged sword; it may serve to either aggravate or mitigate a sentence. Thus, the decision about whether or not to tender this evidence is risky.
A. Alimardani (*) School of Law, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia e-mail: [email protected]
e-mail: [email protected]
URL: http://www.law.unsw.edu.au/profile/armin-alimardani J. Chin TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Keywords Neurolaw . Australian criminal justice system . Neuroscience . Criminal law . Law and science . Law and technology . Sentencing
Part I. Introduction In step with rapid technological developments, neuroscientific evidence is playing an increasingly important role in criminal proceedings in many jurisdictions across the world (see, [1–7]). Despite its widespread use, little
URL: https://law.uq.edu.au/profile/6031/jason-chin URL: https://law.uq.edu.au/profile/6031/jason-chin J. Chin School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia
A. Alimardani, J. Chin
research has examined how neuroscientific evidence is being used in Australian Criminal courts.1 In this article, we seek to fill that void by providing the first systematic review and analysis of the application of neuroscientific evidence in Australian criminal proceedings. This is important because neuroscience in court has been the subject of considerable academic debate, in part due to the potential for misunderstanding and prejudice it presents [9, 10].2 Moreover, basic neuroscientific research itself has been criticized for its use of low sample sizes and unduly flexible methodologies [12]. Generally, our review finds that Australian courts are appropriately cautious in their us
Data Loading...
