Should juries take brain science into consideration when judging teenagers?
SHOULD TEENAGERS AND ADOLESCENTS BE HELD TO THE SAME STANDARDS AS MIDDLE AGED ADULTS ?
If leading neuroscientist know that the teenage brain is not fully developed and therefore scientifically can not make decisions with the same clarity - especially in a high pressure, time sensitive, emotional context - should we legally expect them to?
When adolescents are faced with high pressure events that would make them have to choose self-defense, should juries be required to hear this science and psychology in order to make an accurate assessments of a teenagers capabilities when facing fight or flight situations?
HOW DO WE MAKE DECISIONS AND WHAT IS REASONABLE?
Typically, people form decisions by looking at a situation, interpreting the incoming information, determining how this information fits into there views, such as alignment with goals & values and quickly compare that to all existing known information in the individual. Next would be to come up with actions that correspond. Of course this is a simplified explanation, but psychologically a lot occurs in the brain in the process of making a decision.
Incoming information filters its way through our most primitive brain structure called the amygdala where it decides if the incoming info / stimuli warrants a fight or flight response and if not the lingo is filtered to the prefrontal cortex so that the incoming info can then by analyzed and interpreted accordingly .
For adolescence, this part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex begins to grow into maturity differently for adults. This is the area of the brain that aids the amygdala with accurately assessing what is a true fight or flight situation from a high stress situation that can require an urgent but less extreme response. This area, over time becomes trained to tone down the amygdala primacy when interpreting external stimuli.
This process is what aids you in everyday life situations. For example, to comprehend that an individual yelling at you is angry. Although it is not appropriate, it is still not quite a life or death situation.
Acting alone, the amygdala would interpret this as more hostile, however, the intervention of a mature prefrontal cortex helps us to navigate these sort of emotions in a more strategic way .
Due to the prefrontal cortex's ongoing maturity, during adolescence, the teenage and adolescent brain (under 25 years ) has much higher amygdala involvement than an adult ( over 25 years) due to its lack of full development. This is why any parent of a teenager fully understands that teenagers are often prone to highly emotional reactions to seeming ordinary events and often need to be reminded to "relax, as it is not life or death "
For the adult with fully formed prefrontal function - it is an overreaction - but for a teenager with less prefrontal functioning and a constant fight or flight brain, not only is this highly sensitive stare rational, but it is 100 % reasonable because this is the max of how their brain can function at this point of maturity.
Given cognitive differences in age - what is reasonable behavior or a reasonable decision? It would seem clear that prior to getting into life experience, values ,and goals , that it would then depend on ones age.
We would never expect a 5 year old child to respond with the same clarity of thought as a 15 year old kid. We know just by looking at the fact that the brain is different. It would be unreasonable to expect this.
So, if we know that a 19 year old kids brain is not as functional as a full formed adult brain... say someone 30 years old, do we still expect a 19 year old to respond with the same clarity of thought as a 30 year old as well?
If this is so logical as to fall into the category of common sense - then should we hold people who aren't fully capable of decision making with the same level of clarity as an adult to a standard of making decisions with the same clarity as an adult with a fully matured brain and thinking process?
This would make no sense ! This is not to say there is no culpability for the decision process of adolescence. just as even the 5 year old has a good sense of what is right or wrong .This is just to illustrate that some situations need more context in order to be judged accurately ... more fairly and just .
APPLICATION :
If a teenager is at a party, and is approached, assaulted and surrounded by criminal gang members intent on attacking him ... What is considered reasonable for this teenager to do? What is reasonable for this teenager to feel?
We know from the information above, that a teenager has a heightened amygdala function and is prone to exaggerated emotional responses in high pressure, time sensitive emotional inducing scenarios. This is a scenario that would induce anxiety as well as fear in even a fully mature individual trained in combat and conflict resolution, as those sorts of training teach one to deal with the fear and intentionally shift their focus from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, and then proceed to act accordingly.
For a teenager, this would not only trigger a hightened sense of fight or flight. With brain function that is not fully formed or matured, it would basically be impossible for the adolescent to reason through to any other conclusion. What is reasonable for someone with a brain that is only partially mature, may not be as reasonable as an adult with a fully mature brain. As science says - the brain simply wont allow it.
And if a teenager was to feel frightened to the point of defending oneself with a firearm in the moment ,could it be said that this teenager had no choice but to reason with either fight or flight only,and physiologically had no other choice ?
Now that this information is available and a standard of understanding,should this be a mandatory consideration for someone attempting to accurately asses what is reasonable for a teenager when considering what is reasonable behavior?
Should teenagers faced with heightened emotional stress situations face the same consequences for decisions in the same way as someone with full brain functioning? Or should age of culpable maturity be changed and moved in line with the science?