Neuroscience, criminal responsibility and sentencing in an islamic country: Iran

Abstract

The implications of neuroscience in the legal context have been considered in many countries; however, there has been very little (if any) research on the use of neuroscience in criminal law in Iran. Furthermore, because Iran's legal system incorporates Islamic rules, the legal implications of neuroscience might be fundamentally different from those of other countries. Accordingly, this paper will discuss the potential use of neuroscientific evidence in the evaluation of criminal responsibility and the assessment of sentencing within the Islamic legal system of Iran. The study will conclude that while there are a number of issues that may prevent the use of neuroscience in Iran's criminal justice system, there is a potential for the neuroscience to be used for purposes such as establishing the insanity defense and mitigating the punishment.

Keywords: Iran; criminal law; criminal responsibility; neurolaw; neuroscience; sentencing.

Figure 1.

Different types of punishments and applicability of insanity defense, defense of diminished responsibility, and mitigating and aggravating sentencing factors.