Abstract
In the past 8 years, the US Supreme Court has issued landmark opinions in three cases that involved the criminal culpability of juveniles. In the most recent case, in 2012, a ruling prohibited states from mandating life without parole for crimes committed by minors. In these cases, the Court drew on scientific studies of the adolescent brain in concluding that adolescents, by virtue of their inherent psychological and neurobiological immaturity, are not as responsible for their behaviour as adults. This article discusses the Court's rationale in these cases and the role of scientific evidence about adolescent brain development in its decisions. I conclude that the neuroscientific evidence was probably persuasive to the Court not because it revealed something new about the nature of adolescence but precisely because it aligned with common sense and behavioural science.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
EEG Lie Detection Evidence and Potential Australian Jurors
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology Open Access 17 April 2024
-
A canonical trajectory of executive function maturation from adolescence to adulthood
Nature Communications Open Access 30 October 2023
-
A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Electrophysiological Studies of Online Social Exclusion: Evidence for the Neurobiological Impacts of Cyberbullying
Adolescent Research Review Open Access 22 May 2023
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$189.00 per year
only $15.75 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Elias, P. Many question life sentences for juveniles. USA Today [online], (18 Aug 2012).
Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. ____ (2012).
Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005).
Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. ____ (2010).
Transcript of oral argument in Roper v. Simmons, S. Ct. (2004) (No. 03–633).
American Psychological Association. Amicus curiae brief in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551. American Psychological Association [online], (2005).
Stinneford, J. Rethinking proportionality under the cruel and unusual punishments clause. Virginia Law Rev. 97, 899–978 (2011).
Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988).
Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002).
Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989).
Snyder, H. N. Arrest in the United States, 1990–2010. Bureau of Justice Statistics [online], (2012).
Steinberg, L. A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking. Dev. Rev. 28, 78–106 (2008).
Harden, K. P. & Tucker-Drob, E. M. Individual differences in the development of sensation seeking and impulsivity during adolescence: further evidence for a dual systems model. Dev. Psychol. 47, 739–746 (2011).
Steinberg, L. & Scott, E. S. Less guilty by reason of adolescence: developmental immaturity, diminished responsibility, and the juvenile death penalty. Am. Psychol. 58, 1009–1018 (2003).
Steinberg, L. & Monahan, K. C. Age differences in resistance to peer influence. Dev. Psychol. 43, 1531–1543 (2007).
Gardner, M. & Steinberg, L. Peer influence on risk taking, risk preference, and risky decision making in adolescence and adulthood: an experimental study. Dev. Psychol. 41, 625–635 (2005).
Farrington, D. in Crime and Justice: an Annual Review of Research (eds Tonry, M. & Morris, N.) 189–217 (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1986).
Moffitt, T. E. Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: a developmental taxonomy. Psychol. Rev. 100, 674–701 (1993).
Steinberg, L. Adolescent development and juvenile justice. Annu. Rev. Clin. Psychol. 5, 459–485 (2009).
Luciana, M. (ed.) Adolescent brain development: current themes and future directions. Brain Cogn. 72 (2010).
Casey, B. J., Getz, S. & Galvan, A. The adolescent brain. Dev. Rev. 28, 62–77 (2008).
Schmithorst, V. J. & Yuan, W. White matter development during adolescence as shown by diffusion MRI. Brain Cogn. 72, 16–25 (2010).
Olesen, P. J., Nagy, Z., Westerberg, H. & Klingberg, T. Combined analysis of DTI and fMRI data reveals a joint maturation of white and grey matter in a fronto-parietal network. Brain Res. Cogn. Brain Res. 18, 48–57 (2003).
Vincent, J. L., Kahn, I., Snyder, A. Z., Raichle, M. E. & Buckner, R. L. Evidence for a frontoparietal control system revealed by intrinsic functional connectivity. J. Neurophysiol. 100, 3328–3342 (2008).
Liston, C. et al. Frontostriatal microstructure predicts individual differences in cognitive control. Cereb. Cortex 16, 553–560 (2006).
Dosenbach, N. U. et al. Prediction of individual brain maturity using fMRI. Science 329, 1358–1361 (2010).
Luna, B., Padmanabhan, A. & O'Hearn, K. What has fMRI told us about the development of cognitive control through adolescence? Brain Cogn. 72, 101–113 (2010).
Stevens, M. C., Kiehl, K. A., Pearlson, G. D. & Calhoun, V. D. Functional neural networks underlying response inhibition in adolescents and adults. Behav. Brain Res. 181, 12–22 (2007).
Galvan, A. et al. Earlier development of the accumbens relative to orbitofrontal cortex may underlie risk taking in adolescence. J. Neurosci. 26, 6885–6892 (2006).
Hare, T. A. et al. Biolgical substrates of emotional reactivity and regulation in adolescence during an emotional go-nogo task. Biol. Psychiatry 63, 927–934 (2008).
Steinberg, L. A dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking. Dev. Psychobiol. 52, 216–224 (2010).
Chein, J., Albert, D., O'Brien, L., Uckert, K. & Steinberg, L. Peers increase adolescent risk taking by enhancing activity in the brain's reward circuitry. Dev. Sci. 14, F1–F10 (2011).
Casey, B. J. et al. The storm and stress of adolescence: insights from human imaging and mouse genetics. Dev. Psychobiol. 52, 225–235 (2010).
Burnett, S., Sebastian, C., Kadosh, K. & Blakemore, S.-J. The social brain in adolescence: evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging and behavioural studies. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 35, 1654–1664 (2011).
Pfeifer, J. H. & Allen, N. B. Arrested development? Reconsidering dual-systems models of brain function in adolescence and disorders. Trends Cogn. Sci. 16, 322–329 (2012).
Crone, E. A. & Dahl, R. E. Understanding adolescence as a period of social–affective engagement and goal flexibility. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 13, 636–650 (2012).
Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U.S. 417 (1990).
Weisberg, D. S., Keil, F. C., Goodstein, J., Rawson, E. & Gray, J. R. The seductive allure of neuroscience explanations. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 20, 470–477 (2008).
Aspinwall, L. G., Brown, T. R. & Tabery, J. The double-edged sword: does biomechanism increase or decrease judges' sentencing of psychopaths? Science 337, 846–849 (2012).
Steinberg, L. Should the science of adolescent brain development inform public policy? Issues Sci. Technol. Spring, 67–78 (2012).
Kays, J. L., Hurley, R. A. & Taber, K. H. The dynamic brain: neuroplasticity and mental health. J. Clin. Neurosychiatry Clin. Neurosci. 24, 118–124 (2012).
Shannon, B. J. et al. Premotor functional connectivity predicts impulsivity in juvenile offenders. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 108, 11241–11245 (2011).
Chase-Lansdale, P. L., Mott, F. L., Brooks-Gunn, J. & Phillips, D. A. Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth: a unique research opportunity. Dev. Psychol. 27, 918–931 (1991).
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to B. J. Casey, J. Chein and E. Scott for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing financial interests.
Related links
Glossary
- Amicus curiae brief
-
Literally, a brief submitted by a 'friend of the court'. It is a document filed by a person, group or organization that is not a party to the case but that seeks to influence the court's opinion.
- Dissenting justice
-
One of the justices whose vote is not with the majority of the justices. A dissenting justice may write an opinion explaining the rationale behind his or her disagreement with the majority.
- Majority opinion
-
A judicial opinion (in the United Kingdom, it is referred to as a 'judgement') agreed to by more than half of the members of the court, setting forth the court's decision and an explanation of the rationale behind it.
- US Supreme Court
-
The highest court in the United States, which is composed of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices. It has ultimate jurisdiction over all federal courts and over all state court cases involving federal law.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Steinberg, L. The influence of neuroscience on US Supreme Court decisions about adolescents' criminal culpability. Nat Rev Neurosci 14, 513–518 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3509
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3509
This article is cited by
-
A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Electrophysiological Studies of Online Social Exclusion: Evidence for the Neurobiological Impacts of Cyberbullying
Adolescent Research Review (2024)
-
EEG Lie Detection Evidence and Potential Australian Jurors
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology (2024)
-
A canonical trajectory of executive function maturation from adolescence to adulthood
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Marijuana legalization and historical trends in marijuana use among US residents aged 12–25: results from the 1979–2016 National Survey on drug use and health
BMC Public Health (2020)
-
Male antisocial behaviour in adolescence and beyond
Nature Human Behaviour (2018)