Brain’s fingerprint detects deception
Written by Mike Tran and Catherine Beehag

Police come to your door, grab you, take you to the cop shop and stick electrodes on your head. You are not asked anything at all but instead lay there silently watching pictures of a crime flash before your eyes.

Ten minutes later the police tell you that you are found guilty of the murder of a young women called Sally. No further questions are asked, as your brain has told them everything!

Brain fingerprinting is a technique developed by Dr Lawrence Farwell, a Harvard graduate, neuroscientist and now chairman and Chief Scientist of Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, Inc. Here words, pictures or sounds relevant to a crime are presented with irrelevant words and pictures to a suspect. When stimuli relevant to the crime is presented the suspect lets off a involuntary, specific, and measurable brain response known as a P300. This brainwave response is measured by a patented headband equipped with EEG sensors (see figure 1).

Dr Farwell told BBC news that “brain fingerprinting doesn’t have anything to do with the emotions, whether a person is sweating or not; it simply detects scientifically if that information is stored in the brain.”

Farwell Brain Fingerprinting has proven 100% accurate in over 120 tests, including tests on FBI agents, tests for a US intelligence agency and for the US Navy, and tests on real-life situations including actual crimes.

Those in favour of brain fingerprinting hope to use it in the legal system. If brain fingerprinting proves as foolproof as early research suggests, this would be a legal revolution.

Its effect has already been felt in the United States criminal justice system. On April 25, 2000, Dr. Farwell used Brain Fingerprinting to exonerate an innocent man who has spent 23 years in prison for a murder that he did not commit. Terry Harrington was convicted of the 1977 murder of a nightwatchman in Iowa. Brain fingerprinting results showed Harrington's brain did not contain details of the crime that would be known to the perpetrator but he did have memories stored in his brain that matched several alibi witnesses, who testified Harrington was elsewhere at the time of the crime.

Despite this success, brain fingerprinting has yet to be used in the Australian criminal justice system. Science and the law have had a difficult relationship in Australia. When science enters the legal realm, it has often shown the flaws in our seemingly reliable legal processes.

No matter how certain the scientific technique, it is in the hands of the scientist and lawyer to ensure that it is used properly. These techniques are used most often with identification of suspects. This is a critical part of the legal system – proper identification separates the innocent from the guilty. Misidentification can condemn a poor bystander to imprisonment and allow a criminal to get off scot-free.

The case of the Mickelburg brothers in Western Australia is a prime example. Based on fingerprint evidence, the brothers were convicted of trying to defraud the Perth mint in 1983. The brothers were eventually freed after proving that it was possible to fake fingerprint evidence.

The Australian legal system has tried to control the use of scientific evidence in court. Justice Keith Mason has said that judges must ensure that “the jury understands its role and understands exactly what the scientific evidence does and does not tend to prove” (R v GK [2001] NSWCCA 413). These rules reflect the legal system’s general suspicion of science.

But when science is used well, justice can be achieved. In a high profile investigation of a sexual assault in 2000, police decided to take DNA samples of all men in the NSW town of Wee Waa. The mass screening was critical in police finding and convicting the man responsible. This was a significant success for science in the legal system and helped to ease fears about the use of DNA evidence.

DNA, fingerprints and other forms of forensic evidence are used a lot to help solve crimes in Australia. But evidence of this type is only applicable in an estimated 1% of crimes. The use of Brain Fingerprinting, however, is estimated to be applicable in over 50% of cases, as the brain is always there, planning, executing, and recording the suspect's actions.

Lawyers must learn to embrace this technology, because it can help to achieve swift and fair justice. Brain fingerprinting has the potential to stop people from hiding the truth in court. The uses are endless – we can even find out whether lawyers really are liars.

Details of the Harrington v. State of Iowa, Iowa Supreme Court No. 01-0653 case are available at www.judicial.state.ia.us/supreme/opinions/20030226/01-0653.asp#_ftnref6.

Brain Fingerprinting testing was also “instrumental in obtaining a confession and guilty plea” from serial killer James B. Grinder, according to Sheriff Robert Dawson of Macon County, Missouri. In August 1999 Dr. Farwell conducted a Brain Fingerprinting test on Grinder. The test showed that the record stored in his brain matched the details of the crime. Following the test results, Grinder faced an almost certain conviction and probable death sentence. Grinder pled guilty to the rape and murder of Julie Helton in exchange for a life sentence without parole. He is currently serving that sentence. In addition, Grinder subsequently confessed to the previously unsolved murders of three other young women. Brain Fingerprinting testing has been proven accurate in over 170 tests to date.

For more information on Brain Fingerprinting, log onto http://www.brainfingerprinting.com.

Figure 3: A 27-year-old woman undergoing an EEG examination. Electrodes to have been attached to her head. The EEG records the electrical activity from different parts of the brain, as it reacts to external visual or auditory stimuli. A computer maps an image of this activity, a process known as Brain Electrical Activity Mapping (BEAM). A comparison of the results is made with EEG data from a normal control subject and a colour map of statistical variance is produced, which can be used in the diagnosis of sensory defects.

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