The Law and Neuroscience Project, a clearinghouse for a dialogue between law and brain scientists, has published A Judge's Guide to Neuroscience:  A Concise Introduction.  The useful 71- page manual contains articles by a number of leading neuroscientists which describe the latest consensus on a number of controversial questions which have been raised in BioEdge, along with the best current references. Here are some of its conclusions:

Can neuroscience identify lies? “There are no relevant published data that unambiguously answer whether fMRI-based neuroscience methods can detect lies at the individual-subject level.”

Does neuroscience give us new insights into criminal responsibility? “It is beyond the data generated from any currently published scanning protocol to make predictions about the rational capacity (or lack thereof) of a criminal defendant, or to make inferences as to that defendant’s intent at a specific moment in time before or during a specific criminal act.”

Can neuroscience identify psychopaths? “We are not currently at the point where we can use neuroscience to definitively identify, or diagnose, individuals with psychopathy.”

How is neuroscience likely to impact the law in the long run? “Currently the law operates with notions of personhood and agency that take seriously concepts of volition, control, choice, belief, desire, and responsibility. It is possible that neuroscientific advances will require revisions in some of these views, or less likely, a rejection of some of them as applicable to humans. If such notions become widely accepted, pressure will be put on the legal system to adapt to this new framework.”