The Center for Law, Brain & Behavior puts the most accurate and actionable neuroscience in the hands of judges, lawyers, policymakers and journalists—people who shape the standards and practices of our legal system and affect its impact on people’s lives. We work to make the legal system more effective and more just for all those affected by the law.
On Wednesday, October 1, Amanda Pustilnik presented on juvenile developmental neuroscience research and it’s implications for law. The talk took place at the University of Arizona Law School as part of “The Mind & The Law” public lecture series.
The talk was titled “And If Your Friends Jumped Off a Bridge, Would You Do It? Translating Juvenile Developmental Neuroscience into Law.” Here is the talk abstract: Continue reading »
The Elder Justice Initiative website, launched alongside the US Department of Justice Elder Justice initiative this month, intends to be a resource for victims of elder abuse and financial exploitation and their families, practitioners who serve them, law enforcement agencies and prosecutors, and researchers seeking to understand and address the silent epidemic plaguing our nation’s elders.
View resources, help for reporting elder abuse, FAQs, common scenarios and more about Victim and Family Support.
Find sample databases, statutes, and training resources for Prosecutors.
Explore maps, statistics, and extensive databases for Researchers.
Read reports for attorneys, clinicians, judges, medical examiners and other Practitioners.
Additionally, learn about elder Financial Abuse.
While we may believe that we choose and direct our movements consciously, the physiology of human motor control provides compelling evidence that this sense of conscious decision – free will – is a perception only.
On Thursday, October 2, 2014, at the Bornstein Amphitheater at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, CLBB and the Boston Society for Neurology and Psychiatry co-sponsored an event exploring how an understanding of human motor control can contribute to the question of free will. Video of the event is included below in its entirety and at our Vimeo page. Continue reading »
Amanda Pustilnik, JD
I am excited to join CLBB as the first Senior Fellow in Law & Applied Neuroscience. This fellowship is the product of an innovative partnership between CLBB and the Petrie-Flom Center of Harvard Law School. This partnership aims to translate developments in neuroscience into legal applications, remaining sensitive to the normative dimensions of many – if not all – legal questions. The field of law & neuroscience is large and growing, addressing questions that intersect with nearly every area of law and a huge range of social and human concerns. CLBB is bringing together scientists, bioethicists, and legal scholars to look at questions ranging from criminal responsibility and addiction, to mind-reading and brain-based lie detection, to how the brain’s changes over our life course affect our capacities to make decisions. Continue reading »
By Jennifer Gonnerman | The New Yorker | October 6, 2014
In the early hours of Saturday, May 15, 2010, ten days before his seventeenth birthday, Kalief Browder and a friend were returning home from a party in the Belmont section of the Bronx. They walked along Arthur Avenue, the main street of Little Italy, past bakeries and cafés with their metal shutters pulled down for the night. As they passed East 186th Street, Browder saw a police car driving toward them. More squad cars arrived, and soon Browder and his friend found themselves squinting in the glare of a police spotlight. An officer said that a man had just reported that they had robbed him. “I didn’t rob anybody,” Browder replied. “You can check my pockets.”
The officers searched him and his friend but found nothing. As Browder recalls, one of the officers walked back to his car, where the alleged victim was, and returned with a new story: the man said that they had robbed him not that night but two weeks earlier. The police handcuffed the teens and pressed them into the back of a squad car. “What am I being charged for?” Browder asked. “I didn’t do anything!” He remembers an officer telling them, “We’re just going to take you to the precinct. Most likely you can go home.” Browder whispered to his friend, “Are you sure you didn’t do anything?” His friend insisted that he hadn’t. Continue reading »
