The Impact of Neuroscience and Genetics on the Law: A Recent Italian Case
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The Impact of Neuroscience and Genetics on the Law: A Recent Italian Case M. Farisco & C. Petrini
Received: 11 November 2011 / Accepted: 9 January 2012 / Published online: 18 January 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
Abstract The use of genetic testing and neuroscientific evidence in legal trials raises several issues. Often their interpretation is controversial: the same evidence can be used to sustain both the prosecution’s and defense’s argument. A recent Italian case confirms such concerns and stresses other relevant related questions. Keywords Neuroscience . Genetics . Law . Biolaw
The Facts Since 2007 S.A., a 28-year-old Italian woman, has been causing a financial crisis for her family. In particular, she has been stealing money from her relatives and she has been wasting it through a form of compulsive shopping she is affected by. In 2009 S.A. killed her sister through an overdose of psychopharmaceuticals and burned her body. She then falsified a suicide note in order to shift all responsibility to the victim. Moreover, because of her
M. Farisco (*) Biogem Genetic Research Institute, Via Camporeale, 83031 Ariano Irpino, AV, Italy e-mail: [email protected] C. Petrini Italian National Institute of Health, Via Giano della Bella 34, 00162 Rome, Italy
mother’s suspicions, she tried to strangle and burn her and to escape. The mother survived and the police arrested the young woman. The first psychiatric evaluation pointed out the partial mental insanity of S.A., but the experts did not define a specific diagnosis. For this reason the court required a second psychiatric evaluation, which upheld the full decisional competence of the defendant. At this point the defense attorney demanded a new consultation from other experts. The medical examinations were executed by the cognitive neuroscientist and the psychiatrist and behavioral geneticist who had already been appointed by the Court of Appeal of Trieste in 2009 for a similar case. The sentence at Trieste introduced behavioral genetics in Italian courts and lead to a reduction of the sentence on the basis of an absolutely unprecedented “genetic vulnerability” [1, 2]. In this case, the experts concluded S.A. is affected by a dissociative identity disorder, confirmed both by a behavioral and instrumental test (Autobiographical Implicit Association Test and Time Antagonistic Response Aletiometer). The two technologies used to confirm the psychiatric assessment of the defendant’s tendency to criminal behavior are relevant and problematic at the same time: a neuroscientific and a genetic ‘measurement’ of culpability. Through EEG (Electroencephalogram) and VBM (Voxel Based Morphometry) the experts observed a lack of integrity and functionality of the anterior cingulate cortex, potentially associated with obsessive–compulsive disorder and with aggressiveness. According to the geneticist
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this tendency is confirmed by genetic testing showing MAOA-uVNTR gene polymorphism, usually associated to the risk of increasing aggress
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