2014/06/06

Neuron 4 June 2014: The Double Helix Takes the Witness Stand: Behavioral and Neuropsychiatric Genetics in Court

Advances in understanding genetic predispositions to behavioral and neuropsychiatric syndromes are squarely in the sights of the legal profession. With data suggesting substantial genetic contributions to the risk for criminal behavior (Tuvblad et al., 2011xTuvblad, C., Narusyte, J., Grann, M., Sarnecki, J., and Lichtenstein, P. Behav. Genet. 2011; 41: 629–640

CrossRef | PubMed | Scopus (13)See all ReferencesTuvblad et al., 2011), attorneys have begun to explore the potential uses of genetic evidence in their clients’ defense (Denno, 2011xDenno, D. Mich. State Law Rev. 2011; 2011: 967–1047

See all ReferencesDenno, 2011). In addition, the first signs that genetic data may be of interest to the civil justice system have begun to appear. As is true whenever scientific data are introduced in court, these developments hold potential for assisting judges and juries with some of the difficult judgments that they face—but they also bring a substantial risk of misinterpretation and misuse.

In considering current and future uses of behavioral and neuropsychiatric genetic evidence, the unhappy history of genetics in the courtroom cannot be ignored. Even before the structure of DNA was identified and the transmission of genetic information elucidated, courts recognized that behavioral traits could be handed down in families. However, judges’ understanding of genetics typically reflected the science of the day, and the consequences of their reliance on contemporary knowledge were not always salutary. For example, in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Buck v. Bell (274 U.S. 200, 1927), which upheld Virginia’s involuntary sterilization statute, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, appealing to the popular view that intellectual disability was passed from parent to child and was associated with promiscuity and crime, notoriously declared, “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.” more