Deborah Denno was quoted in a Marshall Project article about the role of neuroscience in the criminal justice system.
Over the past two decades, brain scans and other neuroscientific evidence have become commonplace in courtrooms. So much so that a defendant can file an “ineffective assistance of counsel” claim if his or her lawyer fails to introduce relevant brain tests. And defense lawyers ordinarily submit brain imaging to bolster claims of their clients’ incompetency or insanity.
Still some legal scholars and attorneys decry the growing presence of neuroscience in courtrooms, calling it a “double-edged sword” that either unduly exonerates defendants or marks them as irredeemable future dangers. “But that’s not right,” said Deborah Denno, a professor and director of the Neuroscience and Law Center at Fordham University Law School, who conducted an analysis of every criminal case that used neuroscientific evidence from 1992 to 2012. Her analysis showed that brain evidence is typically introduced to aid fact-finding with more “complete, reliable, and precise information.” She also showed that it is rarely used to support arguments of future dangerousness.