Deception Detection in the Courtroom - Essay Example

Deception Detection in the Courtroom Agreeably, deception is a common activity among individuals and in most casesit succeeds because it cannot always be detected easily. Deception interferes with many human activities including the decision making process in courtroom and this in turn affects the ruling of criminal offences. Actually, the law depends on human fact finders to detect whether one is innocent or guilty or whether the witnesses testifying about the case are telling a lie or the truth (Dresser, 2010). The unreliability of human lie detection has triggered the search for more accurate and effective alternative. For the past few years, many people have started to provide deception detection services utilizing neuroimaging suggesting that it is the best way to determine whether a person is telling a lie. There is possibility of these technologies being used in courtrooms soon but this raise more concerns whether this would be an appropriate use of neuroimaging. fMRI studies state that brain scans have a higher success rates of truth telling detection (Church, 2012). This paper explores the idea of deception detection in courtroom covering the new technological approaches to lie-detection. Even though neuroimaging lie-detection technique has some flaws and rejected to be used in courtrooms, there is need to consider its contribution in detecting deception. According to Church (2012), the two commonly used forms of neuroscientific evidence to detect lies include the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and brain fingerprinting. Scientists have developed new technological approaches to detect deception in courtroom and this involves the use of brain scanning technique known as the fMRI to determine whether an individual is lying (Dresser, 2010). This follows the realization that different parts of the brain remain active when individuals are providing faithful or deceptive answers. Brain fingerprinting determines frequency changes of brain waves when the brain recognizes images and so on (Church, 2012). This method looks for certain information in an individual’s memory on the basis of electrical brain activity. According to this technology, the brain wave is activated when a person realizes something that is part of their specific memory. Advocates for this approach argue that fMRI is more accurate as compare to the initial lie detector, polygraph that mainly depended on increase in blood pressure, heart rate and other signs to determine whether a person is telling a lie. However, legal authorities acknowledge and value the polygraph technique in detecting deception despite the push for making use of fMRI lie detection in a courtroom. The use of neuroimaging to detect deception in courtrooms has been highly criticized because first, studies have noted the connection between deception and activation of some parts of the brain but it is unclear the exact brain parts associated with deception. Various researchers have differed in what brain regions correlates with deception. Again, there is no enough evidence to prove that fMRI is valid and reliable to detect lies in courtrooms (Illes and Sahakian, 2011). More so, anti-fMRI studies claim that much of the research concerning lie-detection neuroimaging are carried out by private organizations like No Lie MRI and such organizations do not publish their research findings in peer-reviewed journals. Scientifically, fMRI studies can be accepted based on whether it is testable, it has been subjected to peer review or publication, and whether it is accepted by the scientific community among others. In addition, they claim that private companies employ scientists who have vested interests in study outcomes. Another issue concerning fMRI study is that individuals are hired and give their informed consent to be part of the fMRI and deception study and there is possibility of being told to lie about something. In addition, countermeasures can make fMRI deception detection not to be effective especially among the trained lairs. Countermeasures are common and easy with fMRI, for instance, an individual can ruin a scan by just moving the head or even the tongue. Moreover, as the person conducting neuroimaging determined blood circulation linked to brain activity, a trained liar can just add another brain activity to interfere with the results (Greely, n.d). Therefore, neuroimaging should not be used in detecting deception in courtroom because it might be ineffective and unreliable just like other lie detection techniques. Furthermore, the problem with fMRI studies is about the individuals tested. The subjects of these studies were homogenous, for instance, some studies we limited to young, healthy, right-handed individuals who do not abuse drugs (Greely, n.d). Therefore, it is hard to prove that these results apply to the rest of the population in the society. Nevertheless, only few studies were concerned with predicting deceptiveness by people while other studies arrived at the conclusion that on average, certain parts of the brain of individuals were likely to be activated or deactivated when they were lying. They do not provide useful information about individuals being tested. Again, there is need to know how accurate neuroimaging is in detecting deception by people involved. Lastly, none of fMRI lie-detection study has been replicated in either published literature or other laboratories, and replication is a very important aspect in science (Greely, n.d). Replication is very significant especially with new and complicated technologies such as fMRI. This is because it is necessary to find out details of the experimental design or the method of subject selection and so on. On the contrary, advocates for the new technological approach to lie-detection involving neuroimaging argue that neoroimaging is the most suitable technique to detect lies in the courtroom and should be assessed according to legal not scientific standards. According to these individuals, the present legal methods of detecting lies are not valid scientifically and so if brain scans offer even a slightly validity, it needs to be used in legal causes. They strongly believe that the rejection of the fMRI lie-detection evidence needs to be based on the analysis of the realistic alternatives within the legal system but not based on whether it meets the scientific standards or not. Typically, neuroimaging may not be entirely reliable and effective but it should be used in courtroom as a source of evidence because the courts sometimes allow forms of evidence that are not entirely reliable like testimony. Therefore, neuroimaging evidence should be allowed in courtrooms as a technique of deception detection. In conclusion, deception detection in courtrooms has created a heated debate particularly on the application of neuroscience in providing evidence in court. neuroimaging has been proposed by some scientist as the most reliable and effective technique in determining whether an individual is telling the truth or not while testifying about a case. fMRI and brain fingerprinting are the two proposed forms of neuroscientific evidence to detect lies in courtroom. fMRI studies claim that some regions of the brain are active when a person is giving faithful or deceptive answers and so this technique can be used to identify who is telling lies. Conversely, brain fingerprinting mainly focuses on the alterations of brain waves when the brain recognizes something that is part of their specific memory. However, the use if neuroscience evidence in courtroom has been criticized as some argues that it is difficult to identify the exact brain regions that are associated with deception. More so, fMRI studies have been rejected since they are conducted by private organizations which do not publish their research findings in peer-reviewed journals. In addition, neuroimaging evidence may not be reliable since there are some trained liars that may interrupt the scanning process making it to be ineffective. On the other hand, advocates for neuroscientific evidence arguing that it is the best approach of lie-detection and it should not be assessed in terms of scientific standards but legal standards. References Church, D. J. (2012). Neuroscience in the Courtroom: An International Concern, William and Mary Law Review. Vol. 53, Issue5. Dresser, R. (2010). Brain Imaging and Courtroom Deception. Hastings Center Report , Vol. 40, No. 6. Greely, H. T. (n.d). Chapter 7: Neuroscience-Based Lie Detection: The Need for Regulation. Illes, J., & Sahakian, B. J. (2011). The Oxford handbook of neuroethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read More