Law and the Mind

• Can a brain scan tell whether someone is lying, and should that type of evidence be admitted at trial? 
• Does a criminal defendant’s history of mental illness impact how a judge decides to sentence?
• Does a plaintiff’s high damage request cause a jury to give a greater award? 
• Do adolescents’ developing brains mean they have reduced criminal culpability? 

We’ll cover these questions and more in this course, which examines how law is affected by both the traditional field of psychology and the emerging field of neuroscience.  Broad topics include judge and jury decisionmaking, the psychological basis of criminal culpability, the psychological justifications for various legal rules & doctrines, and much more.

Along the way we’ll discuss how the legal system can and should respond to new insights in psychology and neuroscience. (Note that all scientific material in the class will be presented in an accessible manner, so no previous science background is required.) Grading will be based heavily on class participation in addition to a final paper.