A judge’s decision to reduce a killer’s sentence because he has genetic mutations linked to violence raises a thorny question – can your genes ever absolve you of responsibility for a particular act?
In 2007, Abdelmalek Bayout admitted to stabbing and killing a man and received a sentenced of 9 years and 2 months. Last week, Nature reported that Pier Valerio Reinotti, an appeal court judge in Trieste, Italy, cut Bayout’s sentence by a year after finding out he has gene variants linked to aggression. Leaving aside the question of whether this link is well enough understood to justify Reinotti’s decision, should genes ever be considered a legitimate defence?
No, says Nita Farahany, a legal scholar at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, who tracks the use of behavioural genetics in the courtroom. She says genes may provide a guide as to how someone is likely to behave, but they will never tell us why they committed a specific act. “It doesn’t tell us why they did the thing they did and that’s what criminal cases are ultimately interested in.”
What’s more, the gene argument seems to cut both ways. Reinotti viewed Bayout’s genes as mitigating his crime, but Farahany has noticed that US courts are increasingly using genes in evidence for the prosecution. “It’s just as likely to be used against a criminal defendant as for,” she says. “People don’t recognise the double-edged potential of this evidence.”
New Scientist (Thanks Eliza)
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Aggression is a learnt behaviour, not a instinctual one. As you said, dangerous times if we start using genes as evidence for either defendants or prosecution- ‘ I couldn’t help it- i was born this way’- scary!
Here’s a slightly more controversial argument… does taking these people away from society (ie. making sure they go to prison and arent ‘let off’) remove the gene from the population temporarily and maybe permanently if they get a life sentence.
- I think you’ve hit the nail there. Do we next stop allowing these “harmful genes” in to the gene pool. If we’re genetically disposed to commit harm and your crimes compensated for then will we also be calling to eradicate it. – Phillis
This is quite frightening….
LC x
Interesting.
So psychological factors may not reduce a sentence but genes will? Leads to a pretty deep discussion about cause & effect with regard to criminality.
On the one hand you would think that because the person committed a crime the sentence would still stand regardless of their genetic compulsion to violence or not.. But if on the other hand the person wouldn’t benefit from punitive or corrective measures the authorities in this case would find another way to rehabilitate them. Scientists have done prison studies finding more than half the prison population have learning difficulties such as dyslexia and dyspraxia. Imagine if they could assess our genetic potential at birth and depending on whether we were tuned towards violent acts or not give you a ‘suitable’ position with regards to life chances and social situations. I’m guessing it could all be turned around in a positive manner but would the ‘authorities’ want to do that or would they try to segregate us according to our genetics..
Does this not mirror a paedophile saying “I am how god made me” Surely this would give them cause to appeal any sentance they get?
An individual’s behaviour can come about as a combination of environment and genetic inheritence or purely from one or the other in itself. I think if someone’s behaviour can result in the abuse of others, they need to be prevented from doing so, not punished. Punishing them doesn’t improve that person or make them sorry. If anything, it will make them more embittered.
@Dani with your comments about finding out at birth what sort of person you will turn out to be and then pre-judge you on your merits/demerits and place you into society accordingly so say Americas gets all the psycho lunatics, Africa gets all the killers etc then surely this will be greating the biggest nanny state going and then lead to, what should be staying in Hollywood and in cinema’s, things like the precog’s in Minority Report or a society like in the film Gattaca.
Surely justice should be about rewarding a particular act with a particular consequence regardless of who or what the perpretrator is. If we punish people to the extent that we don’t understand their motives, and reprieve them to the extent that we understand their motives, then it is no longer justice, it is mob rule with a wig.
@AlanC
Its what Eugenics is about, not so Hollywood as people think. The Nazi’s did it, but did you know in the late 18th century it had its supporters in prominent thinkers/ writers such as HG Wells, Emile Zola, and George Bernard Shaw (amongst others.. check the wiki page for eugenics).. British exponents focussed more on class than race, in fact read the whole page to see how each country involved themselves with Eugenics and the viewpoints they each took. Very interesting. It still continues in some form with genetic engineering, making it not so sci fi after all..
Oh, and I forgot to add I don’t support any kind of Eugenic ideals just in case my post above looked too neutral or one sided.
Eugenics is a very dangerous subject. I’ve no doubt that things will move in that direction at some point in the future, no matter how liberal we might think we are at the mo. We don’t have a choice anyway; decisions will be made for us. Does ‘perfection’ mean the world will be a better place..? Other diseases/afflictions/defects will evolve and we’ll be back to square one.
Knowing how hormones affect me at those dodgy times of the month, I well know I could poss give people a right good kicking at times when the massive surges of adrenalin pump through me. Am I predisposed to aggression? Probably yes. I guess I would be on the prison/death/destroyed embryo list then.