BRAIN SCAN ON DEATH ROW

Right after 9/​11, “brain fin­ger­print­ing” — the con­tro­ver­sial tech­nique that sup­pos­edly spots a liar by mea­sur­ing the mind’s elec­tri­cal activ­ity — was sud­denly hot. Now, it’s “about to take cen­tre stage in a last-​​chance court appeal against a death-​​row con­vic­tion in the US,” the BBC reports.
Dr. Larry Farwell, the founder of Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, says he gave his test a few days ago to Jimmy Ray Slaughter, who has been con­victed of “shoot­ing, stab­bing and muti­lat­ing his for­mer girl­friend, Melody Wuertz, and of shoot­ing to death their eleven-​​month old-​​daughter, Jessica,” accord­ing to the Beeb.
Dr. Farwell claims his test show that “Jimmy Ray Slaughter did not know where in the house the mur­der took place; he didn’t know where the mother’s body was lying or what was on her cloth­ing at the time of death — a salient fact in the case.“
Slaughter is now on death row in an Oklahoma prison. It’s unclear what the impact of the brain fin­ger­print­ing will be on his 11th-​​hour appeal to escape execution.

February 18th, 2004 | Uncategorized | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.