JSI Seminar: Emerging neurotechnological therapies for schizophrenia: Implications for sentencing

Allan McCay (University of Sydney and Macquarie University), Saar Lively (Columbia University), Marcello Ienca (ETH Zürich), Fabrice Jotterand (Medical College of Wisconsin and University of Basel), Rafael Yuste (Columbia University), Philipp Kellmeyer (University Medical Center Freiburg, University of Freiburg, and University of Zürich).

In this paper, the authors review some developments in neurotechnology and consider their possible implications for the future treatment of schizophrenia. Envisaging a neurotechnological device which constantly monitors the brain of a person with schizophrenia, and from time to time intervenes on it, they consider how such technology might one day have a role in sentencing.

They argue that it is possible that a legal argument may be put forward which urges for a sentence in which technology of this kind has a role in monitoring the brain of a schizophrenic offender who is to be subject to some form of conditional release into the community. If a sentencing court were requested to order conditional release of the type just mentioned, the authors argue that the sentencing decision would raise a series of ethical issues which the law is currently not well-placed to address. These issues relate to personal identity and the self, mental privacy, and mental integrity. They argue that these are important considerations in how the courts should respond to a call for neurotechnology to have a role in sentencing and given that the law is not well-equipped to respond appropriately, they call for legal scholars and law reform bodies to start to consider how it might adapt.

About the speaker:

Dr Allan McCay is Deputy Director of The Sydney Institute of Criminology and an Adjunct Lecturer at the Sydney Law School. In addition to coordinating the Legal Research units at the Sydney Law School, he also teaches at the University of Sydney Foundation Program. He is a member of the Management Committee of the Julius Stone Institute of Jurisprudence at the University of Sydney, and an Affiliate Member of the Centre for Agency, Values, and Ethics, at Macquarie University. Allan is also a member of the NeuroRights Network, an international group working towards responsible innovation in neurotechnology. He trained as a solicitor in Scotland and has also practised in Hong Kong with the global law firm Baker McKenzie. Allan’s first edited collection (with Michael Sevel), Free Will and the Law: New Perspectives is published by Routledge. His second (with Nicole Vincent and Thomas Nadelhoffer) is entitled Neurointerventions and the law: Regulating human mental capacity and is published by Oxford University Press. He has also published in the journals Neuroethics, The Journal of Evolution and Technology, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, The International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, and The Indigenous Law Bulletin.

Time: 6-7.30pm

This is a free online event. Once you register you will receive the Zoom details.

CPD Points: 1.5

This event is hosted by the Julius Stone Institute of Jurisprudence at The University of Sydney Law School.