In this day oftechnology, lawyers and doctors are attempting to use brain scan to look intothe mind of criminals. Think MRIs, think PET scans that look at peoples brainsand try to figure out why they commit crimes. Is that useful? Is that somethingthat we could depend on in a trial? Well talk about it. Speaking of trials,how about neurolaw? It is really making headlines lately and it has to do withtrying to use the discoveries of neuroscience and try to apply them in a legalsetting. Well talk about how useful neurolaw is and if its something thatcould continue to make headway in the future. And internet-based data, whatdoes that mean? That means what if somebody posts something that is somewhatsketchy and then later they become the next mass shooter. Should we have seenthose red flags in those social media posts? We cant think of a better personto tackle all of those difficult subjects with than MCG Forensic Psychologist,Dr. Michael Vitacco, a Means Report veteran.

Brad Means: Dr.Vitacco, thanks as always for coming back.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Thanks for having me.

Brad Means: Well,lets take a look at this imaging that I talked about. That was the firstbullet point we saw on our screen.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Yes, sir.

Brad Means: Is itpossible to take a photograph of someones brain and see if they are going tobe a criminal or to see what made them commit a crime?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Yeah, thats a really emerging topic within the idea of neuroscience.

Brad Means: Yeah.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:And what has been going on is that some of these applications have been used inexactly that manner. The problem with this is that many of them are being usedincorrectly. And people are using images to make these sort of assertions youjust spoke about, like hey, this helps us understand this or this leads tothis, when in fact, the science is not quite there yet. So a lot of thesetopics are actually, and these technologies are being misused. And thatswhere, as a scientist and a forensic psychologist, we want to kind of put thebrakes on some of these things and make sure were using it appropriately andcorrectly in scientifically backed manners.

Brad Means: Forpeople who support this, do they look for plaque or irregularities in the humanbrain and say, ah, there you see, criminal.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Thats exactly what they do. They look for primarily irregularities ordifferent things, but the problem there with that is those irregularities arepresent in many people, including many people who never commit a crime. Andbecause of that, just because an individual has a specific or atypical brainissue, it ultimately tells you very, very little. And it tells you almost nothingabout their motive or different things like that which, when we get to the whyis one of the most critical things we can think of.

Brad Means: Is itstill too early in this, or are we already seeing things like this beadmissible in court, a PET scan image, an MRI image, where the judge isaccepting it into evidence?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Well, thats exactly a huge point. Its being accepted often without the judgeor the trier of fact giving it appropriate vetting. So often, its beingadmitted, and sometimes its being admitted wrongly.

Brad Means: So isit fair to say that what weve been talking about so far falls under thisneurolaw umbrella?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Yeah, neurolaws exactly kind of the name for it. Its a subtype ofneuroscience, where neuroscience is being specifically applied to legal issues.And so neurolaw, and theres centers all over the country. So theyre trying tomake strides in this way, but unfortunately, in many applications, it is beingmisused.

Brad Means: Itseems like there would be a substantial amount of money to be made in thisfield.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:There is absolutely a substantial lot of money and theres also backing fromdonors who want to get their scans or their particular equipment into this areabecause in civil lawsuits or various things, it can become quite lucrative. AndI think thats fine, Im not speaking anything directly against that, but weneed to make sure that we have the appropriate scientific backing before weengage in these types of leaps when we talk about what the brain images showand what they actually mean regarding human behavior.

Brad Means: Whatwill it take to get there, more trials, years and years of research?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Thats exactly right. We need to have years and years of research. We need tohave strongly regulated scientific studies, like anything, and we need to thenshow, in replication, where we kind of repeat whats been done, that thesestudies are actually showing us what they are.

Brad Means: Wevetalked before about the insanity defense.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Yes.

Brad Means: Andso I wanna talk about that and regardless of what an imaging machine shows, howyou could determine if someone is insane. Whats the definition of insanity?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Right, so insanity is, the kind of colloquial definition is where you have amental illness, a serious and severe mental illness and because of that illnessyou dont understand right from wrong at the time.

Brad Means: Okay.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:So thats kind of what all states tend to use.

Brad Means: Themental illness component has to be present.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Has to be present first and then, that it leads to someone not understandingright from wrong.

Brad Means: Okay,so you cant have one without the other. In other words, you know, every childunder the age of three is not insane.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:No.

Brad Means: Theydont know right or wrong.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:But they dont know right from wrong.

Brad Means: Butyou have to have the mental illness there.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Right.

Brad Means: Allright, so how do you go about concluding that before youre called as an expertwitness to say, look my recommendation is that you consider this person insane.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Well, and it happens very rarely, but what we try to do is look at totalevidence thats available. And really also it kind of gets into motives. Wewant to know if someone is mentally ill, why did they do what they did? Forexample, someone can have a mental illness, get angry at someone and act out.And thats not insane, thats just someone whos angry versus someone who has amental illness maybe thinks someone is after them and because of that mentalillness and then acts against that. And thats more of a prototypical, regulardefinition of what insanity looks like.

Brad Means: Sowhen you get involved in those forensic psychological interviews take place inyour office or in the jail cell, are you looking for someone who, are youlooking to determine is someone has been insane their entire lives or iftheyre just insane at the time of the offense?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Well it only matters really at the time at the offense.

Brad Means: Thatsall youre concerned about. Thats all they want you to look at.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Yes.

Brad Means: Andyou said more times than not, you dont recommend insanity.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:By far, by probably 95, 90% of the time we dont recommend insanity.

Brad Means: Why,most people arent insane?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Most people are not insane. Most people when they do something, even if itsnot understandable, even if its heinous, even if we cant understand it, theystill understood that what they were doing was against the law and against themorals of society.

Brad Means: Howquickly can you tell if someone is trying to dupe you and what do you look for?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Well, you look for patterns of behavior over the course of time. So if there isa history of such things its very evident. Its very hard to have a longstanding mental illness and it never shows up anywhere.

Brad Means: Right.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Theres always some kind of evidence that that is apparent.

Brad Means: Determiningif someone can tell right from wrong seems like a huge, daunting task.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:It can be.

Brad Means: Evenif the mental illness is there. So lets say youve got that part checked offand now youre going to the, do you know right from wrong part. Other than themtelling you that they dont know right from wrong, how do you determine that? Abunch of questions?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:A bunch of questions and then often what we do, I mean, many more times thannot is we talk to people who saw the crime. And now days we often get just aton of video evidence. Its almost hard to walk anywhere or go anywhere nowwhere theres not video evidence of where you are, cell phone evidence and justa variety of things. And we take all that together and we sort of disentangleit to try to get as close of a picture as possible of this persons behaviorand then the ultimate motives for such a behavior.

Brad Means: Is itpossible in the course of this brief interview together for you to kind of showme what it looks like and say look, heres one time when I determined that thisperson was insane because they said this to me. Or there was a moment in theinterview when I thought, okay this is officially an insane person.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Yeah theres never one moment. Its usually a, several moments kind of puttogether. So and often like you kow, were going to talk to people around themso, how were acting the day it happened? How were they acting before thathappened? Were they calm, were they agitated? And you collect all this data andthat really helps inform our opinions of someones actual mental state at thetime of the offense.

Brad Means: Wetalked earlier about these images, that neuroalaw outlets are using.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Yeah, right.

Brad Means: Andtheyre becoming more and more popular. I know youre among the naysayers. Butdoes a criminals brain look different in some cases than others? Ive heardthat pedophiles might have tumors

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Sure.

Brad Means: andthats a way to know that they are a pedophile or might become one. Does thecriminal brain sometimes actually look different?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:So we actually just published a paper in neuroethics on this topic of insanitydefense and neurolaw. And there has been some evidence where, for example,there as a case where a teacher started having sexual urges towards a child.And through the course of a bunch of evaluations, they actually found a tumorpressing on it, and when that was removed, he kind of went back to not havingthese urges. Whats really important to note about that is that even while thistumor was present he was taking major steps to hide his behavior, to concealinappropriate actions, to avoid his wife, and to hide some of these thoughts hewas having. When somebodys going through such pains to hide their behavior,that they know is illegal, that really suggests that they, despite the factthat they were having a hard time stopping themselves that they understood whatthey were doing was wrong. So even the fact that that tumor was present, stilldid not indicate that he did not understand the difference between right andwrong.

Brad Means: Sure,that behavior might have been there anyway.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:It could have been. But the mere fact that they were taking such steps to hideit and going through very elaborate processes was very informative. And even aswe talked about the specific case, provided real thorough evidence despite thefact that there was a brain issue, that the individual still understood rightfrom wrong. And thats one of the primary limitations of neurolaw is it doesntget at that motive and that ability to sort of get at the ultimate behaviorthat speaks to the issue.

Brad Means: Whenwe come back, were going to talk about some cases that have been in the newslately and why certain criminals may have behaved the way they did. As wecontinue our discussion with forensic psychologist, Dr. Michael Vitacco on TheMeans Report.

Part 2

Brad Means: Welcomeback to The Means Report. We appreciate your staying with us as we continue togo into the mind of a criminal, delve deeply into the mind of a criminal. Wecovered insanity and what it takes to make that determination in our firstsegment. And what good are brain images when it comes to looking at the mind ofa criminal. Dr. Michael Vitacco, forensic psychologist from Augusta Universitystill with us. Sometimes when youre watching those CSI type shows on TV youllsee criminal being interviewed, interrogated.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Right.

Brad Means: Andyoull see on the screen an image of their brain and the interviewer is tryingto see how those brain waves react or respond to certain images or questions.Is that realistic?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Its somewhat realistic.

Brad Means: Yeah.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:But the behavior that can be gleaned from that and the overall insights of thatbehavior based on those brain waves is still very, very limited. So you know,some of these brain imaging tools they have have also now been used as liedetectors and things. And again different areas of your brain will activate.But even some of that information has been called into serious question.

Brad Means: Areyou a lie detector fan?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:We dont use it in our practice.

Brad Means: Yeah.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:No, but even so, in fact its often not even admissible in criminal trials soagain those are things where we have to really improve our science before westart relying on such information especially when were talking about someonesfreedom. You know, these are high stakes sometimes.

Brad Means: Idont want to burst anybodys bubble, especially Marlena Wilson, our executiveproducer and director who loves CSI type shows. But I bet you sit there andshake your head a lot and say, thats not really how it works.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:That happens all the time.

Brad Means: Itdoes.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:And especially to where you know we see all these things being happen within ina very small period of time. You know we have evidence, convictions, trials,and its all done in 45 minutes plus commercials. Thats just not how lifeworks. Often these things go on for years.

Brad Means: Whatsthe difference between a sociopath and a psychopath?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Thats the same sort of thing is that sociopath is an older term. It really meanssomeone who is antisocial and sort of lacks the ability and doesnt truly care.They lack emotions.

Brad Means: Okay.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Especially regarding other people.

Brad Means: Isthat a form of mental illness?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:No, not by a legal definition.

Brad Means: Notby a legal definition.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Right, being a psychopath does not excuse you from criminal behavior.

Brad Means: Weveseen a couple of cases in the news recently. We saw just this past week beforethe recording of this Means Report a tragic case out of South Carolina, asix-year-old girl

Dr. Michael Vitacco:I saw that.

Brad Means: whosebody was found. A mans body was found next to her, a 30-year-old man. Thepresumption is that he killed her and then killed himself.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Thats right.

Brad Means: Takeme through the killing yourself part of things. What would be the benefit orgoal of a criminal, and were not convicting him. Were just using this as anexample because the case is in its early stages. of committing a heinous actagainst a child and then killing yourself never to be able to do that again. Whatsthat mindset and might that person have been determined insane one day?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Yeah, so let me give, caveat this. I only know this from the news. Ive notinterviewed anyone so these are very speculative answers.

Brad Means: Absolutely,and my question too, I think I just told you all I know about it.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Right so I dont know this particular case or what motivated him. I mean itspossible he felt tremendous guilt and he did it. Its also possible he didntwant to get caught and realized that his life was practically over anyway.Theres again several motives that could have come from that behavior. And itwould take a much deeper dive into his psychology and where his head was atwhich could be done if it was needed. But I think, safe to say, there was somesignificant problems with that individual.

Brad Means: Wesaw Dylann Roof in the headlines a few years ago out of Charleston, the massshooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, killed nine people.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Thats right.

Brad Means: Hehad some disturbing social media posts.

Dr. Michael Vitacco:He did.

Brad Means: Andso that brings me to my next topic which is can social media posts be redflags, and how would you know when they cross the line between just an angryperson and a criminal?

Dr. Michael Vitacco:Well more and more now days in my field and across the board is were gettingsocial media posts, instant messages as part of our discovery packet. When youconsider over 70% of Americans engage in some sort of social media use, Icertainly do, I assume you might have a Facebook page.

Brad Means: I do,yeah.

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