Leonard Berlin (2014) reports that neuroscientific data have been presented in court by lawyers wishing to argue that their clients have reduced or absent moral responsibility for their behaviour because their brain function is impaired. Berlin cites evidence showing that such neuroscientific data can influence judges to pass more lenient sentences, and he anticipates that advances in "the neurology of criminal behavior" may lead courts to view certain criminals as having reduced accountability for their actions. Similarly, an advisor to President Obama recently predicted a surge in the number of U.S. defendants appealing to neuroscientific data in criminal court cases in an attempt to reduce sentences and strike out confessions, and commented that this strategy has already been successful in some cases (Sample 2013).
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