Addiction, Genetics, and Criminal Responsibility

In light of the abundance of studies focusing on the genetic contributions to addiction, Morse develops a meaningful background on the legal and scientific images of behavior, the disease concept of addiction, and the aspects of addiction for which a person may be held legally accountable

Addiction, Choice and Criminal Law

This chapter is a contribution to a volume, Addiction and Choice, edited by Nick Heather and Gabriel Segal that is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Some claim that addiction is a chronic and relapsing brain disease; others claim that it is a product of choice; yet others think that addictions have both disease and choice aspects. Which of these views holds sway in a particular domain enormously influences how that domain treats addictions. With limited exceptions, Anglo-American criminal law has implicitly adopted the choice model and a corresponding approach to responsibility. Addiction is irrelevant to the criteria for the prima facie case of crime, it is not an excusing or mitigating condition per se, and it does not contribute relevant evidence to existing excusing conditions, such as legal insanity. This chapter evaluates the criminal law’s model of responsibility using scientific and clinical evidence and dominant criminal law theories. It concludes that although the law’s approach is generally justifiable, current doctrine and practice are probably too unforgiving and harsh. Recommendations for reform conclude the chapter

Mental Disorder and Criminal Law

Mental disorder among criminal defendants affects every stage of the criminal justice process, from investigational issues to competence to be executed. As in all other areas of mental health law, at least some people with mental disorders, are treated specially. The underlying thesis of this Article is that people with mental disorder should, as far as is practicable and consistent with justice, be treated just like everyone else. In some areas, the law is relatively sensible and just. In others, too often the opposite is true and the laws sweep too broadly. I believe, however, that special rules to deal with at least some people with mental disorder are justified because they substantially lack rational capacity. Treating people with mental disorder specially is a two-edged sword. Failing to do so when it is appropriate is unjust, but the opposite is demeaning, stigmatizing, and paternalistic. The central normative question is when special treatment is justified. This Article will focus mainly on United States Supreme Court cases to review the current state of the law, with special attention to the contexts in which preventive detention is an issue. It makes no pretense to covering every issue, to providing a complete analysis of these cases, or to comprehensive coverage of all the arguments concerning the issues raised. The Court’s cases are simply a vehicle for organizing the overview. The goal is to explore what I consider the most just approach in each area. In some cases, my preferences are foreclosed by constitutional constraints; in others, the preferred approach could be achieved by statute or by state supreme court decisions

Lost in Translation?: An Essay on Law and Neuroscience

The rapid expansion in neuroscientific research fuelled by the advent of functional magnetic resonance imaging [fMRI] has been accompanied by popular and scholarly commentary suggesting that neuroscience may substantially alter, and perhaps will even revolutionize, both law and morality. This essay, a contribution to, Law and Neuroscience (M. Freeman, Ed. 2011), will attempt to put such claims in perspective and to consider how properly to think about the relation between law and neuroscience. The overarching thesis is that neuroscience may indeed make some contributions to legal doctrine, practice and theory, but such contributions will be few and modest for the foreseeable future. The first part of this essay describes the law’s implicit folk psychological view of human behavior and why any other model is not possible at present. It then turns to dangerous distractions that have clouded clear thinking about the relation between scientific explanations of human behavior and law. Next, the essay considers how to translate the mechanistic findings of neuroscience into the folk psychological concepts the law employs. Finally, illustrative case studies of the legal relevance of neuroscience studies are presented. The discussion and all the examples focus on criminal law and on competence for the sake of simplicity and coherence, but the arguments are almost all generalizable to other legal contexts

The Status of NeuroLaw: A Plea for Current Modesty and Future, Cautious Optimism

In a 2002 editorial published in The Economist, the following warning was given: “Genetics may yet threaten privacy, kill autonomy, make society homogeneous and gut the concept of human nature. But neuroscience could do all of these things first.”1 The genome was fully sequenced in 2001, and there has not been one resulting major advance in therapeutic medicine since. Thus, even in its most natural applied domain—medicine—genetics has not had the far-reaching consequences that were envisioned.2 The same has been true of various other sciences that were predicted to revolutionize the law, including behavioral psychology, sociology, and psychodynamic psychology, to name but a few. This will also be true of neuroscience, which is simply the newest science on the block. Neuroscience is not going to do the terrible things The Economist fears, at least not in the foreseeable future. Neuroscience has many things to say, but not nearly as much as people would hope, especially in relation to law. At most, in the near to intermediate term, neuroscience may make modest contributions to legal policy and case adjudication. Nonetheless, there has been irrational exuberance about the potential contribution of neuroscience, an issue I have addressed previously and referred to as “brain overclaim syndrome.”