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As technology advances, it can either help or hurt both our criminal justice system and our individual liberties. One of those advances is MRIs, which can trace real-time brain activity. Obviously this can hugely impact on our criminal justice system and civil liberties - perhaps forcing a redefinition (or at least further clarification of what rights a person has with regard to privacy). Furthermore, in 2011, scientists at UC-Berkeley managed to make a crude movie from a person's visual cortex, suggesting that very sophisticated and reliable "movies" can be made from a person's very memories themselves. So far, courts have been hesitant to use this technology in this way due to fears of uncertain reliability, although they have been used for more objective matters such as tumors or basic structural abnormalities very reilably said to influence the person's behavior. Even so, we are just beginning our journey to understand the human brain, and all that it implies about privacy, civil liberties, criminal justice, and perhaps even employablity and insurability.
What are your rights in a courtroom when it’s your own brain being used as evidence against you? What are your rights vs obligations in this matter? What landmines do you see that can threaten our civil liberties? What about any tradeoffs between punishing the guilty and protecting the innocent?
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What are your rights in a courtroom when it’s your own brain being used as evidence against you? What are your rights vs obligations in this matter? What landmines do you see that can threaten our civil liberties? What about any tradeoffs between punishing the guilty and protecting the innocent?
The questions are heavily weighted on the assumption that the person is going to be guilty of something. How about those persons who would be proved innocent by use of the same technology?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kevxu
The questions are heavily weighted on the assumption that the person is going to be guilty of something. How about those persons who would be proved innocent by use of the same technology?
If the person really didn't commit the crime, then all well and good. However, we won't know the verdict until after the fact.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Izzie1213
Wouldn't the 5th amendment cover that. The right not to incriminate yourself.
If the 5th amendment doesn't cover breathalyzers, how can we say it won't cover "brain scanning" technology?
Wouldn’t necessarily just be a “prosecutors dream”.
Identification of a neurological disorder could be helpful for the defense as well. Might make the difference between the death penalty or a life sentence.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LTU2
Breathalyzers are voluntary, that's why.
What prevents the law from saying police have to request a brain scan, leaving the accused the option to refuse (just like a breathalyzer)?
Quote:
Originally Posted by coschristi
Wouldn’t necessarily just be a “prosecutors dream”.
Identification of a neurological disorder could be helpful for the defense as well. Might make the difference between the death penalty or a life sentence.
Agreed. If the accused's brain scan not only shows no evidence of lack of self control, but also his or her acquaintainces clearly indicate he or she consistently exercised substantial self-control and mental discipline in the past, then brain scans would work in the prosecutor's favor. If the scans show clear evidence of a lack of self control due to brain structure issues, then he or she should simply be imprisoned or put in a mental hospital (or some other means of separation from the wider society).
Still, the article doesn't imply "brain scans" as a magic wand (or so it seems to me), so I'll give the author that much credit.
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Well... if it is one hundred percent accurate without fail, accounting for nervous anxiety, accounting for mental illness, it would NEVER fail; it would be excellent.
I'm dealing with some false accusations in my personal life right now and I'd love something like that to prove myself... if it worked reliably.
However, it probably would not work properly and I can see innocent people being given guilty sentencing just because they were under a lot of stress.
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