CLBB’s Dr. Judith Edersheim and Judge Gertner were featured speakers at this year’s HUBweek, as part of the Perspectives in Healing: Women in Medicine series. Dr. Edersheim will headline the event titled, “Where the Brain and the Law Intersect”, on Sunday, October 4th, from 6-7 pm. Continue reading »

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The neuroscience of adolescent brain development has had increasing impact on American jurisprudence. The U.S. Supreme Court relied on this neuroscience in Roper v. Simmons (2005) in barring execution for capital crimes committed as a juvenile and in Miller v. Alabama (2012) in holding that mandatory life without possibility of parole for juveniles is also unconstitutional.

On Monday, September 28, 2015, CLBB and the Petrie-Flom Center assembled a panel of developmental scientists, clinicians, and legal scholars for a panel discussion examining the implications of developmental neuroscience for law in specific domains including death penalty mitigation for young adults over age 18 such as the Tsarnaev case, a developmentally informed view of Miranda and Competence to Stand Trial for juveniles, trial of youth as adults, and conditions of confinement in juvenile and adult incarceration.

The panel discussed the promises and perils for constitutional jurisprudence, legal and public policy reform, and trial practice of relying upon a complex body of science as it emerges. Scroll down to view complete video from the event.

This event is part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. 

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CLBB Faculty Member Nancy Gertner‘s decision on a 1999 federal lawsuit was recently cited by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in a ruling against the Federal Aviation Administration. The ruling held that an air traffic controller, who is accusing the FAA of discrimination based on his sexual orientation, could pursue a complaint under Title VII, which bars discrimination on the basis of factors including race, color, religion, sex, and origin. The ruling stated, “We conclude that sexual orientation is inherently a ‘sex-based consideration,’ and an allegation of discrimination based on sexual orientation is necessarily an allegation of sex discrimination under Title VII.” This ruling took a decision by Judge Gertner as precedent, where in 2002, she denied Postal Service’s bid to throw out a lawsuit on the grounds that Title VII did not explicitly mention sexual orientation. She wrote:

In fact, stereotypes about homosexuality are directly related to our stereotypes about the proper roles of men and women. The harasser may discriminate against an openly gay co-worker, or a co-worker that he perceives to be gay, whether effeminate or not, because he thinks, ‘real’ men should date women, and not other men.

Read the full piece from The Boston Globe, “Federal Commission Cites Mass. Lawsuit in Sexual Orientation Case“, by Travis Andersen, published July 21, 2015.

CLBB faculty member Nancy Gertner was featured in The Atlantic for her remarks on the Drug War at the 2015 Aspen Ideas Festival. Speaking from her 17 years of experience as a federal judge, Gertner likened the damage done by the drug war to the destruction of cities in World War II. From the article:

Among 500 sanctions that [Gertner] handed down, “80 percent I believe were unfair and disproportionate,” she said. “I left the bench in 2011 to join the Harvard faculty to write about those stories––to write about how it came to pass that I was obliged to sentence people to terms that, frankly, made no sense under any philosophy.”

“This is a war that I saw destroy lives,” she said. “It eliminated a generation of African American men, covered our racism in ostensibly neutral guidelines and mandatory minimums… and created an intergenerational problem––although I wasn’t on the bench long enough to see this, we know that the sons and daughters of the people we sentenced are in trouble, and are in trouble with the criminal justice system.”

Read the full piece from The Atlantic, “Federal Judge: My Drug War Sentences were ‘Unfair and Disproportionate,'” by Conor Friedersdorf, published June 29, 2015.

By Nancy Gertner | The Boston Globe | June 30, 2015

The government focused on the claim that Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev did not show remorse for his heinous, unimaginable crime until last week’s sentencing proceeding. That, counsel suggested, was too little, too late. Why was Tsarnaev silent during the penalty phase, when his life was on the line, only to speak after the jury chose death, when it no longer mattered? The sealed docket entries, the arguments of counsel, the documents that have been kept from the public, may hold the clue.

The defense reported that there was a 2013 letter from Tsarnaev, written just months after the bombing, about which the government knew. It suggested that letter did demonstrate remorse, and further, that Tsarnaev went so far as to offer to cooperate with the government. The letter was sealed under the government’s Special Administrative Measures. SAMs, as these measures are called, were put in place to block a defendant’s communications with the outside world, even if those communications contained an apology, had evidentiary value, and — in this case — may have served to dissuade others from following Tsarnaev’s lead. What did he say then? What was the context?

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