My brain made me do it

The United States is seeing a rise in defendants relying on neuroscience arguments to win court room acquittals, Ian Lawrence reports in The Guardian.

According to Nita Farahany, a law professor who sits on Barak Obama’s bioethics advisory panel, defendants’ lawyers are drawing on neurological evidence to try to clear defendants of culpability, or challenge confessions. Professor Farahany predicts the trend could spread to the UK. She says:

'The question is, how do we best use this evidence in ways that are appropriate, while recognising there are areas where we do things wrong in criminal law and need to improve upon them?'