Law and Neuroscience

Law and Neuroscience

Neurosciences--Law and legislation

Kristen Walker

Owen D. Jones, René Marois, Martha J. Farah, Henry T. Greely

Journal of Neuroscience

Vol. 33

No. 45

2013

Journal article

English

Open Access

Law and neuroscience seem strange bedfellows. But the engagement of law with neuroscientific evidence was inevitable. For one thing, the effectiveness of legal systems in regulating behavior and meting out justice often depends on weighing evidence about how and why a person behaved as he or she did. And these are things that neuroscience can sometimes illuminate. For another, lawyers are ethically bound to champion their clients' interests. So they remain alert for new, relevant, or potentially persuasive information, such as neuroscience may at times offer, that could help to explain or contextualize behavior of their clients.