The Law and Neuroscience Blog

Justice on Trial: Gangs, Neuroscience and Drug Reform

Register now for the 2012 Public Defender's Justice Summit in San Francisco


Former gang members, top law enforcement officials, leading neuroscientists and drug reform pioneers will gather for a frank and fascinating discussion at the 2012 Public Defender’s Justice Summit on Tuesday, May 29 at San Francisco Main Library.

The summit, JUSTICE ON TRIAL:
Gangs, Neuroscience and Drug Reform, will be held in the library’s Koret
Auditorium from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event is free, but seating is limited.
All attendees must register at sfpublicdefender.org.


The Justice Summit is the premier criminal justice conference on the West Coast. This year’s lineup
focuses on the most hotly-debated subjects: gang violence, drug decriminalization and how neuroimaging is changing our ideas about criminal culpability.

The Justice Summit is co-sponsored by the Bar Association of San Francisco, Attorneys attending the
conference will earn 4 MCLE units.

Schedule:

9 a.m.: Registration

9:30 a.m.: Keynote Speaker: UCLA Professor Jorja
Leap, author of Jumped In: What Gangs Taught Me About Violence, Drugs, Love
and Redemption.

10 a.m. Panel I: Jumped In: Strategies to Reduce Gang
Violence

11:15 a.m. Panel II: The Brain on Trial: Is Free Will
Truly Free?

12:30 p.m.: Lunch provided

1:30 p.m. Panel III: Drugs: From Felonies to Misdemeanors?


Panelists:

• Jeff Adachi, San Francisco Public Defender
• Bicka Barlow, Deputy Public Defender and DNA Expert
• Michael Biel, Commander of Investigations, SF Police Department
• Lizbett Calleros, Coordinator, HOMEY
• David Faigman, UCSF/UC Hastings
• Eric Fleming, Assistant District Attorney, Gang Prosecutions
• Geno Frazier, Expert, Youth Violence Prevention
• Ricardo Garcia-Acosta, Northwest Community Response Network
• George Gascón, SF District Attorney
• Matt Gonzalez, Chief Attorney, SF Public Defender’s Office
• Dr. Kent Kiehl, University of New Mexico, Neuroimaging Expert
• Tal Klement, Deputy Public Defender
• Mark Leno (by video): California State Senator
• Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director, National Drug Policy Alliance
• Wendy Still, Chief, San Francisco Probation Department
• German Yambao, Case Manager, Former Inmate

Neuroethics Symposium May 25, 2012 - Emory University

Neuroethics Symposium May 25, 2012 @ 1-5pm

The Truth About Lies: the Neuroscience, Law, and Ethics of Lie Detection Technologies

You Can’t Handle the Truth! The Neuroscience Program, Center for Ethics Neuroethics Program, and the Scholars Program in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Research (SPINR) are combining forces to hold a symposium on the intersection of neuroscience and law pertaining to the use of fMRI and other lie detection technologies in the courtroom. Drs. Hank Greely, director of the Center for Law and Biosciences at Stanford Law School, Daniel Langleben, a professor of Psychiatry at University of Pennsylvania and pioneer of using fMRI to detect lies, and Steven Laken, founder, president, and CEO of Cephos; a company that markets the use of fMRI for courtroom lie detection will be providing their expertise through a series of talks. Following the talks, Emory’s Carolyn Meltzer, Chair of the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, will join the speakers answering questions from the audience during a panel discussion moderated by Julie Seaman from Emory Law School. Mark your calendars for 1pm-5pm, May 25^th, 2012 for this thought-provoking event. For now, you might want to check out this video by our Neuroethics Creative Team on Neuroscience in the Courtroom.

For more information, visit http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/p/events.html

Livestream of Conference on Law and Policy of the Developing Brain

Watch this conference here: http://www.livestream.com/uchastings

Law and Policy of the Developing
Brain: Neuroscience from Womb to Death

2/10/2012, 8:30 am – 7:00 pm

Location: UC Hastings College of the Law, 200 McAllister Street, Alumni
Reception Center

2/11/2012, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm

Location: Stanford Law School, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Room 190

Penn Neuroscience Boot Camp

The 3^rd Annual Penn Neuroscience Boot Camp, hosted at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Neuroethics and Society and supported in part by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, will run from July 30 – August 8, 2012.

Scholarships are available for law faculty. The number of scholarships is limited. Application deadline: February 3, 2012

On-line applications now available at: http://www.neuroethics.upenn.edu/index.php/events/neuroscience-bootcamp

Penn's Neuroscience Boot Camp

The University of Pennsylvania announces their 3rd annual Neuroscience Boot Camp, July 31-August 10!

Why Neuroscience Boot Camp? Neuroscience is increasingly relevant to a number of professions and academic disciplines beyond its traditional medical applications.  Lawyers, educators, economists and businesspeople, as well as scholars of philosophy, sociology, applied ethics and policy, are incorporating the concepts and methods of neuroscience into their work.  Indeed, for any field in which it is important to understand, predict or influence human behavior, neuroscience will play an increasing role.

The Penn Neuroscience Boot Camp gives participants a basic foundation in cognitive and affective neuroscience and equips them to be informed consumers of neuroscience research.

What happens at Neuroscience Boot Camp?  Through a combination of lectures, break-out groups, panel discussions and laboratory visits, participants will gain an understanding of the methods of neuroscience and key findings on the cognitive and social-emotional functions of the brain, lifespan development and disorders of brain function. Each lecture will be followed by extensive Q&A.  Break-out groups allow participants to delve more deeply into topics of relevance to their fields. Laboratory visits will include trips to an MRI scanner, an EEG/ERP lab, an animal neurophysiology lab, and a transcranial magnetic stimulation lab. Participants will also have access to an extensive online library of copyrighted materials selected for relevance to the Boot Camp, including classic and review articles and textbook chapters in cognitive and affective neuroscience and the applications of neuroscience to diverse fields.  See http://lawneuro.typepad.com/the-law-and-neuroscience-blog/2009/08/bloggin-from-boot-camp-day-one.html for a daily blog post from our first Boot Camp.

Who should apply? College and university faculty, working professionals and graduate students are encouraged to apply.  The only prerequisites are a grasp of basic statistics and at least a dim recollection of high school biology and physics.  (A short set of readings will be made available prior to the Boot Camp to remind you about the essentials.) 

More details: Participants will be housed on campus in air-conditioned apartment-style suites with private bedrooms.  Sessions begin at 8:30 AM and end at 5:15. Breakfast and lunch will be eaten with the group; dinners are on your own. The academic program spans nine days, Monday, August 1st - Wednesday, August 10th with half of Saturday and all of Sunday off.  There will be an opening reception on the evening of Sunday July 31st and a gala dinner on the last evening.

The cost of tuition, room and board is $4,500; limited scholarship support is available.  Complete applications are due by midnight on February 1st.  You will be notified of the status of your application by March 7th, and will have until April 1st to confirm attendance.

Visit http://neuroethics.upenn.edu/index.php/events/neuroscience-bootcamp for more information! 

Ethics and the Brain

The University of Missouri is hosting an exciting conference in March entitled, "Ethics and the Brain."  Speakers include Steven Pinker, Patricia Churchland, Adam Kolber, Jesse Prinz, Adrian Raine, Nancey Murphy, and Joseph Dumit.  

Law & The Brain

There is an exciting upcoming conference with an all-star cast of legal scholars, judges, philosophers, and neuroscientists entitled, "Law & The Brain: How Recent Advances in Neuroscience Impact the Law." Several members of LANP will be presenting on a wide variety of topics including neuroimaging and the law, the neuroscience of addiction, neuroevidence in the courtroom, and neural lie detection--to name just a few. It ought to be both informative and illuminating.

TILTing Perspectives on the Stand

TILTing Perspectives is a series of bi-annual international conferences, organized by the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT) at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. TILT is a multidisciplinary institute conducting research into the legal and social implications of various emerging (fields of) technologies, ranging from information and communication technologies, to bio- and nanotechnologies, to neurotechnologies and robotics.

TILT is happy to announce the next conference of this series, entitled

TILTing Perspectives 2011: 
Technologies on the stand: Legal and ethical questions in neuroscience and robotics

This conference focuses on the legal and ethical questions raised by the application of neuroscience and robotics in a number of contexts. Think, for instance, of the following examples:

• the use of  neurotechnologies in the legal arena, in therapy, and for human enhancement;
• the advent of robot technologies in home and hospital environments, but also in war.

For more details on the theme and subject area of this conference, please see the call for papers

In this two-day conference we aim to bring together national and international experts from the fields of law, robotics and neuroscience, and to facilitate discussion between lawyers, legal scholars, psychologists, social scientists, philosophers, neuroscientists and policy makers. 

Key details:

• Conference dates: 11 and 12 April 2011
  
• Conference location: Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands
  
• Registration: opens on 1 October 2010; closes on 5 April 2011
  
• Submission of abstracts: opens on 1 September 2010; closes on 15 October 2010
  
• Submission of full papers: opens on 1 October 2010; closes on 15 December 2010
  
• Reviewer feedback on full papers: sent to authors on 31 January 2011(at the latest) 
  
• Final revised papers due: 1 March 2011

Call for Abstracts

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

The European Centre for Life Sciences, Health and the Courts, University of Pavia, in cooperation with the Court of Milan, Collegio Ghislieri in Pavia and the international group on Neuroscience & Law, announces the International Conference:

“Neuroscience in European and North-American case-law and judicial practice”

September 17th, 2010 - Milan (Italy)

Neuroscience is currently used referring to a bundle of disciplines, which study the human brain and its relation to mental activity and behavior. Behavioral genetics has a similar aim, with reference to the genetic makeup. Neurogenetics combines, in different ways, the two previous approaches.

Since 2002 scholars have debated how neuroscientific findings, neuro-cognitive methods and new diagnostic techniques (especially brain imaging) may impact on the existing legal categories. As a matter of fact a growing number of scholars and legal practitioners are studying how these methods can be used with forensic purposes. It seems indeed clear that a better knowledge of the biological basis of human behavior might have important consequences in the law, under many respects.

Besides, the possibility to use scientific methods in order to determine mental states impacts both on criminal liability and all areas of the legal system. This challenge has arisen, in these terms, in different States less differently than we imagine.

The greatest enthusiasm has been in the United States, where a worldwide debated case law has developed. Throughout Europe there is now the necessity, on one side, to understand whether there is a unknown use of such neuroscientific techniques and, on the other side, to train judges and legal practitioners to properly understand and use these new methods.

The topics (and sessions) of the conference are:

1. Prospects of Neuroscience

2. Impact of Neuroscience on the European and American Law

3. Brain Interfaces and Legal/Ethical problems

4. Are legal systems Neuroscience-friendly?

Workshops on Moral Agency, Deliberative Awareness, and Conscious Control

Amy Wouters has asked me to post an announcement for the followings series of workshops in the Netherlands:

Three workshops on Moral Agency, Deliberative Awareness, and Conscious Control

Department of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands


Friday and Saturday 15–16 October 2010: Strawsonian and Consequentialist Views on Personal Responsibility

Friday and Saturday 16–17 September 2011: Everyday Reason Talk

Friday and Saturday 8-9 June 2012: Narrativity, interpretation and responsibility