{"id":804,"date":"2015-09-23T19:28:46","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T19:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/?p=804"},"modified":"2015-09-23T19:28:46","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T19:28:46","slug":"neurogenetic-evidence-in-the-courtroom-a-randomised-controlled-trial-with-german-judges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2015\/09\/23\/neurogenetic-evidence-in-the-courtroom-a-randomised-controlled-trial-with-german-judges\/","title":{"rendered":"Neurogenetic evidence in the courtroom: a randomised controlled trial with German judges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prominent court decisions and research suggest that presentation of neuro-genetic evidence may reduce the sentence of convicted psychopaths. In a mock case, we presented German judges with a hypothetical case vignette of aggravated battery and randomly assigned them to expert testimonies that either involved a neuro-genetic explanation of the offender\u2019s psychopathy or not.<\/p>\n<p>We found that neuro-genetic evidence significantly reduced judges\u2019 estimation of legal responsibility. Moreover, neuro-genetic arguments presented by the prosecution significantly increased the number of judges (23% compared to ~6%) ordering an involuntary commitment in a forensic-psychiatric hospital. Such an involuntary commitment may last much longer than a prison sentence in the German legal system. Our data thus demonstrates the socially contingent nature of legal responses to neuro-genetic evidence. (By Dr. Johannes Fuss, <a href=\"http:\/\/jmg.bmj.com\/content\/early\/2015\/08\/25\/jmedgenet-2015-103284\">http:\/\/jmg.bmj.com\/content\/early\/2015\/08\/25\/jmedgenet-2015-103284<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/files\/2015\/09\/IMG-20150908-WA0004.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-805\" src=\"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/files\/2015\/09\/IMG-20150908-WA0004-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"IMG-20150908-WA0004\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/files\/2015\/09\/IMG-20150908-WA0004-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/files\/2015\/09\/IMG-20150908-WA0004-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/files\/2015\/09\/IMG-20150908-WA0004.jpg 1328w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>From left to right: Prof. Peer Briken and Dr. Johannes Fuss<!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prominent court decisions and research suggest that presentation of neuro-genetic evidence may reduce the sentence of convicted psychopaths. In a mock case, we presented German judges with a hypothetical case vignette of aggravated battery and randomly assigned them to expert testimonies that either involved a neuro-genetic explanation of the offender\u2019s psychopathy or not. We found [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2015\/09\/23\/neurogenetic-evidence-in-the-courtroom-a-randomised-controlled-trial-with-german-judges\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}