• Med Sci Law · Jul 2015

    Reforming automatism and insanity: Neuroscience and claims of lack of capacity for control.

    • Lisa Claydon.
    • School of Law, The Open University, UK lisa.claydon@open.ac.uk.
    • Med Sci Law. 2015 Jul 1; 55 (3): 162-7.

    AbstractThis paper examines some of the issues raised by the current criminal law defence of automatism and the related defence of insane automatism, and considers what neuroscience may contribute to the reform discussion. It also considers some of the claims made in relation to the impact of neuroimaging in the courtroom. It examines an American medical case report in which an individual's criminal behaviour is linked to a brain tumour, and considers how the reformed law as presented in the Law Commission for England and Wales' Discussion Paper might treat such claims. It concludes by examining what assistance the law may gain from a deeper understanding of how a sense of agency emerges from brain states, and the implications of this scientific knowledge for the reform of the law. © The Author(s) 2015.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…