Disease Behind the Crime?

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Who would want to hear the answer to the question of Whitman’s motive behind shooting? None other than his first hand victims themselves. While recalling the incident of the Texas Tower Shooting, Claire James, the first to get shot out of the 32 victims who were injured, said, “I thought I’d stepped on an electrical line because it was such a huge jolt” (YouTube). Claire James was only 18 and pregnant when she got shot in the hip by Whitman, and on that same horrendous day she lost both her baby and her then boyfriend, Thomas Eckman. Its deeply saddening how a single day can change so much, leading from all the happiness you’ve ever wanted - to being left with nothing at all. This was the case for Claire after the shooting. Claire’s despondent personal perspective on the Whitman case, even fifty years after the shooting, is explained and analyzed by Pamela Colloff in her essay, “The Reckoning.” Colloff writes about how Claire’s post-shooting situation was “basically mixed up – confused about life in general”, as quoted by Claire (Colloff). It wasn’t until Claire came across Lavergne’s book, “A Sniper in the Tower”, that she discovers the possibility that Charles Whitman could’ve been so inhuman that he actually aimed for her unborn baby first. On this Lavergne in his book writes, “As if to define the monster he had become, he chose the youngest life as his first victim from the deck”, and Claire’s initial reaction to hearing this news was frenetic. However, Colloff explains how Claire couldn’t grasp how in such a short amount of time, “he became so twisted and decided to do what he did” and thus never held a personal grudge against him, stating that, “I’ve never felt it was personal. How could I? He didn’t know me; I didn’t know him.” Thus, Claire couldn’t quite ever reach a final conclusion about Whitman and his crime.

The case of the Texas Tower Shooting draws in different perspectives with various contrasting views, and the multiperspectivity of this case is what makes it so intriguing. However, can cases like these ever be completely solved? Do we ever get to know Charles Whitman’s real motivation behind killing and injuring all those people? Jim Lewis, in his article, “Mind Games”, believes that the discovery of actual scientific findings related to tumor connected actions or behavioral change, could not only help us crack the case for Whitman, but it could also possibly change the whole neuro-law system and how we perceive it. Lewis, being a huge supporter of neuroscientist David Eagleman’s views on the Charles Whitman case, agrees with him on his notion that, “human behavior cannot be separated from human biology” (Eagleman). Analyzing Eagleman’s book, “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain”, Lewis explains Eagleman’s arguments from the scientific and legal perspective, noting that, the account of consciousness could’ve been overpowered by factors like the tumor, which leads to involuntary actions; and the presumption of the legal system that individuals are responsible for their own actions would mean that it is based on the idea that all of our brains are alike: be it mentally stable or unstable. Keeping these thoughts in mind, Lewis concludes that ethical problems like the incarceration or execution of the innocent who were wrongfully under the control of their own mutations could be well avoided. However, he too still has some doubt that any criminal (with a tumor) could always be lying, and in fact questions whether we will ever know “to what extent was it biology and to what extent was it the criminal?” Overall, what Lewis implies is that the current state of neurolaw cannot justify Whitman’s case from any aspect, and its development is an utmost need to further expand our knowledge on similar cases.

When trying to solve cases like that of Whitman, the 21st century neurolaw system instigates heated debates between different perspectives on not only the case itself, but on the bigger question of whether neuro-cases or neurolaw itself will ever be justifiable. Jeffrey Rosen, in his article, “The Brain on the Stand”, provides a detailed account on neurolaw and its controversy. Rosen introduces the current stance of neurolaw, quoting that, “American law holds people criminally responsible unless the act under duress or if they suffer from a serious defect” (Rosen), which suggests that convicts could be absolved of responsibility simply due to the dysfunction of their brain. This raises the ethical question of whether all behavior could be potentially excused, especially considering the fact that our behavior is caused by our brains as asserted by Mellen and Eagleman? According to Rosen, recently, lawyers have been routinely ordering brain scans of the convicted defendant and using these scans to argue that a neurological impairment caused them to commit a crime. Although the validity and worth of neurological evidences like brain scans are still perceived as skeptical, Rosen believes this hasn’t stopped them from revolutionizing the law, explaining further by giving examples of how “Neuroscientific evidence has persuaded jurors to sentence defendants to life imprisonment rather than to death”, like when “courts admitted brain-imaging evidence during criminal trials” in the case of mentally ill John W. Hinckley Jr. who tried to assassinate President Reagan back in 1981 (Rosen).

In accordance with the views that are held on the Whitman case, the same groups of people will segregate into proponents and opposition of the legal system of neurolaw. Proponents of neurolaw like Lewis make way for the argument which is described by Rosen that, “neuroscientific evidence will have a large impact not only on questions of guilt and punishment but also on the detection of lies and hidden bias, and on the prediction of future criminal behavior” (Rosen). Intensive development of neurolaw can help answer the unanswered questions of unsolved perplexing cases involving neurological disorder, and will help truly determine whether the criminal’s intention was influenced by his/her own defected biology. Rosen cites the research of neuroscientists Owen Jones and René Marois which involved the study of interactions among the emotion-generating generating regions of the brain, like the amygdala, and the pre-frontal regions responsible for the reason. With the use of 7-tesla magnetic-resonance-imaging scanners, Jones and Marois generate high resolution 3-D images of a person’s brain which allow them to analyze brain-activity patterns which helps them study the influence of certain parts of the brain on decisions as well as possibly help guess what a person was thinking about. Although Marois and Jones stressed that in order to “prove this study”, more people would have to be put into