The Brain Defense

December 19, 2016
Journalist Davis (Defending the Damned) provides an accessible look at how criminals’ brain damage has been cited by their defense attorneys, a relatively new intersection of science and law that, in theory, could
provide answers to a fundamental question: Do people have free will and thus bear
culpability for their crimes, or is biology destiny? Davis centers his study on a New York City homicide from 1991. Herbert Weinstein, a retired advertising salesman who was regarded by friends and family as completely non-violent, strangled his wife, Barbara, before throwing her out the window of their 12th-floor Upper East Side apartment. Weinstein confessed almost instantly to the murder. Given that the killing was so out of character, his attorney, Diarmuid White, pursued a
psychiatric defense, a tactic bolstered by the results of an MRI scan that revealed that Weinstein had an “orange-sized growth” on his left frontal lobe. Davis walks the reader carefully through the scientific and legal debates over whether that cyst alone caused Barbara Weinstein’s death. He also effectively examines related issues, such as violence committed by veterans suffering from PTSD, and by football players afflicted with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. His comprehensive research amply supports his conclusion that brain damage alters behavior but “neuroscience alone cannot absolve someone of committing murder—or any crime—or pinpoint the cause of a single act.”

Starred review from November 15, 2016
American Bar Association Journal editor Davis (Defending the Damned: Inside Chicago's Cook County Public Defender's Office, 2007, etc.) engagingly explores how sophisticated brain studies might help explain the causes of violent crimes.The author uses an unlikely New York City murder as the connecting link in his wide-ranging inquiry into "broken brains" that might leave criminals helpless to control violent urges. On Jan. 7, 1991, 65-year-old Herbert Weinstein, a mild-mannered, respected business executive with "a clean record and no history of violent behavior," argued with his wife before knocking her unconscious and throwing her out of their apartment window to the street 12 stories below. Though Weinstein confessed to the homicide, he could not account for his uncharacteristic rage. His lawyer decided to order scans of Weinstein's brain, a revolutionary tactic at the time; the scans showed a cyst the size of an orange. At that juncture, Weinstein's lawyer, the prosecutor, the judge, and highly specialized neuroscientists had to decide whether the cyst provided a complete explanation for the murder, only a partial explanation, or was simply an extraneous factor. As the well-written narrative unfolds, Davis returns to the Weinstein case frequently. Amid the chapters about the murder, the author skillfully interweaves accounts of other alleged "broken brain" cases, research battles among neuroscientists about how to interpret brain injury data, and inquiries into specific types of brain damage--for instance, from football and other contact sports or from military combat. Perhaps the most crucial question revolving around broken brain research is whether the injuries invalidate free will. Could Weinstein have controlled his rage during the altercation with his wife, or did the damage to Weinstein's capacities from the cyst render him unable to exercise free will? A thoroughly researched, clearly presented book that suggests that imprecise brain science will become increasingly more common as evidence in criminal cases.

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January 1, 2017

In this fascinating book, veteran Chicago journalist and author Davis (Defending the Damned; The Wrong Man) explores the veracity of brain imaging and the burgeoning role of neuroscientific evidence in the courtroom. Using the bizarre case of Herbert Weinstein, a retired advertising executive who murdered his wife by strangling her and tossing her body from the 12th floor of a Manhattan apartment building, Davis traces the evolution of brain imaging in criminal cases. The seemingly innocuous Weinstein was known for his unflappable calmness, so what caused him to commit a single violent act late in life? As divulged by brain scans, Weinstein had an arachnoid cyst, a brain tumor that might have impeded the area of his brain devoted to curbing impulsivity. This introduction of neuroscience at trial gave rise to the increasingly common practice of producing brain images in court to attempt to prove that a defendant's bad acts were caused by brain damage. Nevertheless, legal and medical experts still cannot incontrovertibly establish causal connection between brain injury and criminal acts in any individual instance. VERDICT Perfect for readers of Antonio Damasio's Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.--Lynne Maxwell, West Virginia Univ. Coll. of Law Lib., Morgantown

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