Page 42 - John Monaghan News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

on. >> competent versus volitional. we can decide that cognitive isn't sufficient, but it is the basis where we draw the line. sorry. >> ok. so to get back to the science, do you see how the research that you're doing and this imaging and identification of areas in the brain that may be part of primarily psychopathy which we're talking about today, how would that be used in the courtroom? what is your opinion? >> classically individuals who have those trades, the lack of empathy, those traits predict future recidivism. if you're an offender and scored very high on those traits, you h...

we work with inmates to volunteer force studies and how to make them better. what we have found is that individuals to have those psychopathic traits, only about a third of all inmates will score really high on the straights. they have reduced gray matter density in these areas. this is the same area where that guy had the tumor. these individuals, control and for all the important things, they are all from pretty average environments. extremely different in terms of structure. does this go towards mitigation? how should it be used? how should this information be used to? i use it to...

problems with the disconnect that i was alluding to earlier between how science deals with this question and how lawyers deal with this question is that you actually get a fundamental disconnect between the two systems. so you mentioned that lack of emotional control or lack of ability to control your preferences might lead to insanity, but, in fact, in most jurisdictions as you know, that's not true. after hanky was acquitted under the american law institute test because he could not control his behavior, congress in most state jurisdictions changed the law, got rid of the lack of e...

to deal with punishment once we understand people have wrong selections. i think those are all interesting questions, but is there free will? well, the fact that almost everybody in the audience raised either their right or left hand contemplated it and were quickly able to act and respond. that to me says, yes, there is. now what do we want to do about it? now that we understand that those of us in the audience or up here that like chocolate cake may not have control over it, how do we want to account for that if at all in the criminal justice system? to date, we haven't. in the fut...

own purposes, but what is problematic here is the disconnect. from the criminal side, if you lack emotional control, you go to prison because you can't win under the test because the test doesn't apply. when you walk out of prison and you lack emotional control, you get civilly committed. so what we have is a fundamental disconnect between how we view philosophy of free will and human control on the criminal side versus the civil side and not surprisingly on both sides "the state wins" because on the criminal side you go to prison and on the civil side, you get incarcerated civilly. ...