The Brain Defense
Murder in Manhattan and the Dawn of Neuroscience in America's Courtrooms
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Narrated by:
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Jim Frangione
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By:
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Kevin Davis
About this listen
Called "the best kind of nonfiction" by Michael Connelly, this riveting new book combines true crime, brain science, and courtroom drama.
In 1991 the police were called to East 72nd St. in Manhattan, where a woman's body had fallen from a 12th-story window. The woman's husband, Herbert Weinstein, soon confessed to having hit and strangled his wife after an argument, then dropping her body out of their apartment window to make it look like a suicide. The 65-year-old Weinstein, a quiet, unassuming retired advertising executive, had no criminal record, no history of violent behavior - not even a short temper. How, then, to explain this horrific act?
Journalist Kevin Davis uses the perplexing story of the Weinstein murder to present a riveting, deeply researched exploration of the intersection of neuroscience and criminal justice. Shortly after Weinstein was arrested, an MRI revealed a cyst the size of an orange on his brain's frontal lobe, the part of the brain that governs judgment and impulse control. Weinstein's lawyer seized on that discovery, arguing that the cyst had impaired Weinstein's judgment and that he should not be held criminally responsible for the murder. It was the first case in the United States in which a judge allowed a scan showing a defendant's brain activity to be admitted as evidence to support a claim of innocence.
The Weinstein case marked the dawn of a new era in America's courtrooms, raising complex and often troubling questions about how we define responsibility and free will, how we view the purpose of punishment, and how strongly we are willing to bring scientific evidence to bear on moral questions. Davis brings to light not only the intricacies of the Weinstein case but also the broader history linking brain injuries and aberrant behavior, from the bizarre stories of Phineas Gage and Charles Whitman, perpetrator of the 1966 Texas Tower massacre, to the role that brain damage may play in violence carried out by football players and troubled veterans of America's 21st century wars. The Weinstein case opened the door for a novel defense that continues to transform the legal system: Criminal lawyers are increasingly turning to neuroscience and introducing the effects of brain injuries - whether caused by trauma or by tumors, cancer, or drug or alcohol abuse - and arguing that such damage should be considered in determining guilt or innocence, the death penalty or years behind bars. As he takes stock of the past, present and future of neuroscience in the courts, Davis offers a powerful account of its potential and its hazards.
Thought-provoking and brilliantly crafted, The Brain Defense marries a murder mystery complete with colorful characters and courtroom drama with a sophisticated discussion of how our legal system has changed - and must continue to change - as we broaden our understanding of the human mind.
©2017 Kevin Davis (P)2017 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Davis is doing much more than giving Herbert Weinstein back his name and telling his complex story with compassion: He is reporting on a revolution taking place at the awkward intersection of brain science, technology and the law.... Davis’ book is sensitive to the moral and philosophical questions that hang over the legal battles he explores.... The time when guilt and innocence will cease to matter is a long way off; meanwhile, the more judges, lawyers, and juries understand the complex issues they will be facing, the better off we will all be. Reading The Brain Defense will be an excellent way to begin.” (The Wall Street Journal)
“The Brain Defense is a uniquely important addition to the existing literature on the relationship between neuroscience and criminal justice. This is probably the best book on the role neuroscience has played in criminal justice system. Davis has explained the complex concepts of neuroscience and criminal justice in such a way that even laypeople would enjoy reading it. Both students and experts of neuroscience and criminal justice would benefit from this.” (The Washington Book Review)
“An excellent and balanced account of ... a fascinating and important issue.” (DiscoverMagazine.com)
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- Narrated by: J. Paul Guimont
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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When the ashes had settled after World War II and the Allies convened an international war crimes trial in Nuremberg, a psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley, and a psychologist, Gustave Gilbert, tried to fathom the psychology of the Nazi leaders using extensive psychiatric interviews, IQ tests, and Rorschach inkblot tests. Never before or since has there been such a detailed study of governmental leaders who orchestrated mass killings.
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History Lover
- By Tamara on 03-02-17
By: Joel E. Dimsdale
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Brainwashed
- The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience
- By: Sally Satel, Scott O. Lilienfeld
- Narrated by: Jean Barrett
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In recent years, the advent of MRI technology seems to have unlocked the secrets of the human mind, revealing the sources of our deepest desires, intentions, and fears. As renowned psychiatrist and scholar Sally Satel and psychologist Scott O. Lilienfeld demonstrate in Brainwashed, however, the explanatory power of brain scans in particular and neuroscience more generally has been vastly overestimated.
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The Overall Message...
- By Douglas on 11-26-13
By: Sally Satel, and others
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Suspicious Minds
- How Culture Shapes Madness
- By: Joel Gold, Ian Gold
- Narrated by: Joel Gold, Ian Gold
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Mr. A. was admitted to Dr. Joel Gold’s inpatient unit at Bellevue Hospital in 2002. He was, he said, being filmed constantly, and his life was being broadcast around the world "like The Truman Show" - the 1998 film depicting a man who is unknowingly living out his life as the star of a popular soap opera. Over the next few years, Gold saw a number of patients suffering from what he and his brother, Dr. Ian Gold, began calling the "Truman Show Delusion," launching them on a quest to understand the nature of this particular phenomenon and the nature of madness itself.
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Intriguing
- By L. K. on 04-18-16
By: Joel Gold, and others
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Tough Cases
- Judges Tell the Stories of Some of the Hardest Decisions They've Ever Made
- By: Russell F. Canan - editor, Gregory E. Mize - editor, Frederick H. Weisberg - editor
- Narrated by: Isabel Keating, Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In Tough Cases, judges from different kinds of courts in different parts of the country write about the case that proved most difficult for them to decide. Some of these cases received international attention: the Elián González case in which Judge Jennifer Bailey had to decide whether to return a seven-year-old boy to his father in Cuba after his mother drowned trying to bring the child to the United States, or the Terri Schiavo case in which Judge George Greer had to decide whether to withdraw life support from a woman in a vegetative state over the wishes of her parents.
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Puts being a judge in perspective
- By David Bigelow Stouffer on 01-14-20
By: Russell F. Canan - editor, and others
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Illusion of Justice
- Inside Making a Murderer and America's Broken System
- By: Jerome F. Buting
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Not since The Thin Blue Line has there been a true-crime saga as engrossing as Making a Murderer. Captivating audiences across demographic lines, it made Steven Avery a household name and thrust defense attorney Jerome F. Buting - and his fight against America's dysfunctional criminal justice system - into the spotlight. In Illusion of Justice, Buting uses the Avery case as a springboard to examine the shaky integrity of our law enforcement and legal systems, which he has witnessed firsthand for nearly four decades.
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Tells it like it is . . .
- By Regan Williams on 11-26-17
By: Jerome F. Buting
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Devil’s Knot
- The True Story of the West Memphis Three
- By: Mara Leveritt
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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“Free the West Memphis Three!” - maybe you’ve heard the phrase, but do you know why their story is so alarming? Do you know the facts? The guilty verdicts handed out to three Arkansas teens in a horrific capital murder case were popular in their home state - even upheld on appeal. But after two HBO documentaries called attention to the witch-hunt atmosphere at the trials, artists and other supporters raised concerns about the accompanying lack of evidence.
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Surprisingly disappointing
- By La Becket on 12-05-12
By: Mara Leveritt
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Whoever Fights Monsters
- My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI
- By: Robert K. Ressler, Tom Shachtman
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Face-to-face with some of America's most terrifying killers, FBI veteran and ex-Army CID colonel Robert Ressler learned from them how to identify the unknown monsters who walk among us - and put them behind bars. Now the man who coined the phrase "serial killer" and advised Thomas Harris on The Silence of the Lambs shows how he has tracked down some of the nation's most brutal murderers. Join Ressler as he takes you on the hunt for America's most dangerous psychopaths. It is a terrifying journey you will not forget.
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Murderino checking in
- By Sarah R Bongiovanni on 06-16-17
By: Robert K. Ressler, and others
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The Anatomy of Motive
- The FBI's Legendary Mindhunter Explores the Key to Understanding and Catching Violent Criminals
- By: John Douglas, Mark Olshaker
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The Anatomy of Motive offers a dramatic, insightful look at the development and evolution of the criminal mind. The famed former chief of the FBI's Investigative Support Unit, John Douglas was the pioneer of modern behavioral profiling of serial criminals. Working again with acclaimed novelist, journalist, and filmmaker Mark Olshaker, and using cases from his own fabled career as examples, Douglas takes us further than ever before into the dark corners of the minds of arsonists, hijackers, bombers, poisoners, serial killers, and mass murderers.
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Smuckers jelly narration. Still good.
- By Thad Ames on 11-07-17
By: John Douglas, and others
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A Wilderness of Error
- The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald
- By: Errol Morris
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Early on the morning of February 17, 1970, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a Green Beret doctor named Jeffrey MacDonald called the police for help. When the officers arrived at his home they found the bloody and battered bodies of MacDonald's pregnant wife and two young daughters. The word "pig" was written in blood on the headboard in the master bedroom. As MacDonald was being loaded into the ambulance, he accused a band of drug-crazed hippies of the crime.
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Interesting but Unconvincing
- By A customer on 03-31-15
By: Errol Morris
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Wicked Takes the Witness Stand
- A Tale of Murder and Twisted Deceit in Northern Michigan
- By: Mardi Link
- Narrated by: Jim McCance
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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On a bitterly cold afternoon in December 1986, a Michigan State trooper found the frozen body of Jerry Tobias in the bed of his pickup truck. The 31-year-old oil field worker and small-time drug dealer was clad only in jeans, a checkered shirt, and cowboy boots. Inside the cab of the truck was a fresh package of expensive steaks from a local butcher shop, the first lead in a case that would be quickly lost in a thicket of bungled forensics, shady prosecution, and a psychopathic star witness out for revenge.
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Justice system Vs Conviction system
- By Sean on 11-14-16
By: Mardi Link
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The Book of Woe
- The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry
- By: Gary Greenberg
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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For more than two years, author and psychotherapist Gary Greenberg has embedded himself in the war that broke out over the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM) - the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) compendium of mental illnesses and what Greenberg calls "the book of woe". Since its debut in 1952, the book has been frequently revised, and with each revision, the "official" view on which psychological problems constitute mental illness has changed.
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Disappointment
- By NYNM on 06-03-13
By: Gary Greenberg
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My Life Among the Serial Killers
- Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers
- By: Helen Morrison M.D., Harold Goldberg
- Narrated by: Helen Morrison
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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Dr. Helen Morrison has profiled more than 80 serial killers around the world. What she has learned about them will shatter every assumption you've ever had about the most notorious killers known to man.
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Boring reader,boring writing
- By P. Minor on 02-03-08
By: Helen Morrison M.D., and others
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Let the Lord Sort Them
- The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty
- By: Maurice Chammah
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: The country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment.
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Very Slanted
- By appreciative reader on 02-07-21
By: Maurice Chammah
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The Psychopath Inside
- A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain
- By: James Fallon
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The memoir of a neuroscientist whose research led him to a bizarre personal discovery, James Fallon had spent an entire career studying how our brains affect our behavior when his research suddenly turned personal. While studying brain scans of several family members, he discovered that one perfectly matched a pattern he’d found in the brains of serial killers. This meant one of two things: Either his family’s scans had been mixed up with those of felons or someone in his family was a psychopath.
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Entertaining story with some quick neuroscience
- By smarmer on 09-21-14
By: James Fallon
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Unbroken Brain
- A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction
- By: Maia Szalavitz
- Narrated by: Marisa Vitali
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Challenging both the idea of the addict's "broken brain" and the notion of a simple "addictive personality", Unbroken Brain offers a radical and groundbreaking new perspective, arguing that addiction is a learning disorder, and shows how seeing the condition this way can untangle our current debates over treatment, prevention, and policy.
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Not what I expected
- By Jennifer Sader on 08-28-16
By: Maia Szalavitz
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Fight Back and Win
- My 30-Year Fight Against Injustice and How You Can Win Your Own Battles
- By: Gloria Allred
- Narrated by: Gloria Allred
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Abridged
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Fearless lawyer, feminist, activist, television and radio commentator, warrior, advocate, and winner, Gloria Allred is all of these things and more. Voted by her peers as one of the best lawyers in America, and described by Time as "one of the nation's most effective advocates of family rights and feminist causes", Allred has devoted her career to fighting for civil rights across boundaries of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and social class.
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Amazing book, amazing woman.
- By Hope on 04-05-12
By: Gloria Allred
What listeners say about The Brain Defense
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sherry Macmanes
- 04-06-17
illuminating
Addressed. a lot of issues and gave me a lot to think about. Issues are presented well, and just when you think you've got it, you find out just how much more you need to learn.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Lindsay S. Nixon
- 03-05-17
As riveting as a crime thriller; fascinating subj
Would you listen to The Brain Defense again? Why?
Absolutely. As you listen, you will want to know more about the subject while simultaneously recognizing a second helping is needed.
What did you like best about this story?
It was the perfect balance of science, application, memoir/historical account with an action, fast, "thrilling--what-happens-next" (suspenseful) pace.
What does Jim Frangione bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Jim's voice brings a certain humanity to the people discussed in this book.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
Military veterans suffer brain damage much like NFL players or boxers because they are near explosions that make them fall and hit their heads. This has never occurred to me.
I was also surprised (even as a lawyer) to learn how rarely the "insanity" defense is used in criminal trials... and how woefully unsuccessful it is (and why).
Any additional comments?
Although this book does not come out and say this specifically, the dots connect throughout with one clear conclusion: the death penalty is not justice.
Life in prison? Sure, but that time in prison should also include therapy or other medical treatment that can repair the brain, if possible. "Faulty wiring" or "brain damage" is not an absolute defense in that it gives the person a pass or pardon. What it does provide is understanding. Our current legal system wants to access blame and personal responsibility with a focus on free will. Neuroscience changes that and change is difficult.
The closing thought is: Punishment is still warranted, but we need to start having more compassion and accept that these people "know not what they do."
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7 people found this helpful
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- C M G
- 04-01-17
Exceptionally informing
I very much enjoyed this book. It was structured in a way that allowed retention of information while also entertaining. Well done. Sidenote: dictionary mildly necessary but context allows for 90% understanding.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-04-17
Mitigation Neuroscience
Absolutely fantastic book! It combines the best of both academia and storytelling in one comprehensive volume. Well written and well read. I cannot wait to see what else this author has in store for this audience.
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3 people found this helpful