Owen D. Jones
Selected Media Coverage of Scholarship
National Law Journal - Study: Jurors can’t distinguish between knowing and reckless conduct - December 20, 2011
Landmark law and neuroscience network expands at Vanderbilt, August 24, 2011
National Law Journal - Project bridging law and neuroscience lands at Vanderbilt University, July 26, 2010
Vanderbilt University MyVU - Landmark national project on law and neuroscience to be based at Vanderbilt, July 20, 2010
Scientific American - The Legal Brain: How Does the Brain Make Judgments about Crimes, by Johannes Haushofer and Ernst Fehr, January 27, 2009
Wall Street Journal - The brain, your Honor, will take the witness stand, by Robert Lee Hotz, January 15, 2009
New York Law Journal - New Interdisciplinary Research Enters Legal System, by Ken Strutin, January 15, 2009
Financial Times - Origins of crime and punishment, by Alan Kane, December 12, 2008
New Scientist - Justice may be hard-wired into the human brain, by Ewen Callaway, December 11, 2008
Science News - In the brain, justice is served from many parts, by Tina Hesman Saey, December 10, 2008
Neuron - You Shouldn't Have: Your Brain on Others' Crimes, by Johannes Haushofer and Ernst Fehr, November 19, 2008
The Economist - Science & Technology - The Endowment Effect: It's mine, I tell you, June 19, 2008
Vanderbilt Magazine - Biology, Behavior, and the Tools of Law, featured faculty member, Spring 2008
New York Times Magazine - The Brain on the Stand: How neuroscience is transforming the legal system, by Jeffrey Rosen, March 11, 2007
Other Recent Media
NPR: Brain Science in the Courts - October 7, 2011 - Should a convicted murderer be given a lighter sentence if a brain scan suggests he can't tell right from wrong? Courts are increasingly confronting such questions as the use of MRIs as evidence becomes more common. Host Dave Iverson discusses the intersection of brain science and the law with Nita Farahany, associate professor of law, Owen Jones, professor of law and biological sciences, and Ken Murray, assistant federal public defender in Phoenix.
Big Picture Science: Whodunit, Who'll Do It?– September 19, 2011- Sophisticated tools that give scientists an unprecedented look at the structure and the activity of the human brain are now being used in the courtroom. Owen Jones, the New York Alumni Chancellor's Chair in Law and Professor of Biological Sciences, discusses the intersection of law and neuroscience, during both guilt/innocenceand sentencing phases of a trial.
The Tennessean: Neuroscience causes court headaches - September 7, 2011 - Researchers at Vanderbilt University are seeking to provide guidance on how novel technologies like functional MRI scans should be used in courtrooms with the support of a $4.85 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Director Owen Jones, professor of law and biological sciences, and Jeffrey Schall, E. Bronson Ingram Professor of Neuroscience, are quoted.
Neuroscience vs. philosophy: Taking aim at free will - August 31, 2011 - Nature - As humans, we like to think that our decisions are under our conscious control — that we have free will. Philosophers have debated that concept for centuries, and now experimental neuroscientists are raising a new challenge. They argue that consciousness of a decision may be a mere biochemical afterthought, with no influence whatsoever on a person’s actions. According to this logic, they say, free will is an illusion. Owen Jones, director of the Law and Neuroscience Project at Vanderbilt, suggests that research into such questions could help to identify an individual’s level of responsibility.
Science and The Law: fMRI Lie Detection Fails a Legal Test - June 11, 2010 - Science - Lie-detection technology that uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of brain activity is not yet ready for use in the courtroom, a federal magistrate judge in Tennessee decided last week. Owen Jones, professor of law and biological sciences and incoming director of the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project, is quoted.
Brain scan lie-detection deemed far from ready for courtroom - June 1, 2010 - Wired - The magazine’s “Wired Science” blog reports on a federal court decision that excludes fMRI findings, at least gathered under the conditions present in one particular fraud case, from being admitted into evidence. Owen Jones, professor of law and biological sciences and incoming director of the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project, is quoted.
Brain Scans Not Acceptable for Detecting Lies, Says Judge - June 1, 2010 - ScienceInsider - In the first decision of its kind, a federal magistrate judge has ruled that functional magnetic resonance imaging shouldn't be permitted in the courtroom as a new type of lie detector. While Judge Tu Pham agreed that the technique had been subject to testing and peer review, it failed on two other points suggested by the Supreme Court to weigh cases like this one: the test of proven accuracy and general acceptance by scientists. Owen Jones, professor of law and biological sciences and incoming director of the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project, is quoted.
Eyewitness account of ‘watershed’ brain scan legal hearing - May 17, 2010 - Wired Science - Owen Jones, professor of law and biological sciences and incoming director of the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project, is interviewed about the first federal admissibility hearing for functional MRI lie detection.
Magnets can manipulate morality - March 29, 2010 - Discovery News - Scientists at MIT have used a magnetic device to target a certain part of the brain that influences a person’s judgment. When the magnet scrambles the signals of those cells, study participants were less able to separate good intentions from bad outcomes. Owen Jones, professor of law and biological sciences, is quoted.
Brain science starting to impact varied fields - October 15, 2009 - Reuters - It used to be that only doctors were interested in brain scans, searching the images for tumors, concussions or other health problems hiding inside a patient's skull. More and more, though, images showing neurons firing in different areas of the brain are gaining attention from experts in fields as varied as law, marketing, education, criminology, philosophy and ethics. Owen Jones, professor of law and biology and co-director of the Law and Neuroscience Project, is quoted.