Brain-scans are still not admissible as evidence in US courts. This week a court in Brooklyn dismissed an attempt by a lawyer to use a fMRI scan to break the deadlock in a he-said/she-said employment civil suit. A woman has alleged that she was not given good jobs by an employment agency after she complained about sexual harassment in a previous job. The agency boss denied this, but another employee contracted her. A brain scan done by Cephos, a company which claims to provide “independent, scientific validation that someone is telling the truth” would have been used to prove that she was being truthful.

However, the defending lawyer successfully argued that it is the jury’s job to determine the credibility of witnesses, not a machine’s.

This failure is unlikely to halt the push to use fMRI scans in the courtroom. Wired.com reports that lawyers in another case, in Tennessee, are attempting to get a brain scan admitted as evidence later this month. A psychiatrist has been charged with defrauding Medicare and Medicaid in the way he contracted and billed for his services. However, he contends that he did not intend to defraud the government and underwent a brain scan to prove it. ~ Wired, May 5