PSYCHIATRIC NEUROIMAGING EVIDENCE - A HIGH-TECH CRYSTAL BALL

Neuroimages, which may appear to be deceptively similar to photographs of a person's brain, have been used as evidence in court cases to sup port psychiatric diagnosis. These images are scientific evidence, and courts should evaluate the admissibility of such evidence under Dauber t v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. But psychiatric evaluations of a person's mental state are ''soft'' science, which may or may not be evaluated as scientific evidence. When a psychiatrist's testimony make s reference to ''hard'' science evidence such as neuroimages, there is a danger of undue prejudice because the finder of fact may be confuse d. In this note, Jennifer Kulynych describes this problem and proposes a two-pronged evidentiary standard as a solution. She suggests that c ourts evaluate the hard science aspects of neuroimaging evidence under established doctrine, and evaluate the soft science evidence under a social science framework. Given the current state of psychiatric neuro imaging research, Ms. Kulynych concludes that the amount of neuroimagi ng evidence admitted under her proposed standard would appropriately b e quite small.