Reconciling the opposing effects of neurobiological evidence on criminal sentencing judgments.

ABSTRACT: Legal theorists have characterized physical evidence of brain dysfunction as a double-edged sword, wherein the very quality that reduces the defendant's responsibility for his transgression could simultaneously increase motivations to punish him by virtue of his apparently increased dangerousness. However, empirical evidence of this pattern has been elusive, perhaps owing to a heavy reliance on singular measures that fail to distinguish between plural, often competing internal motivations for punishment. The present study employed a test of the theorized double-edge pattern using a novel approach designed to separate such motivations. We asked a large sample of participants (N = 330) to render criminal sentencing judgments under varying conditions of the defendant's mental health status (H

SUBMITTER: Allen CH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6338372 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature