Blame

So we're gonna start with a story from our producer Pat Walters about a couple. That's the lady, I'm Janet, this is the guy. So I don't need you to introduce yourself, that's usually the thing we do, but we're not film people who you are. We're gonna call him Kevin. Kevin, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's my name. That's suspicious at all. It's not his real name. It'll make sense why we're not using his real name in a second. Okay, you know, so this one starts a few summers ago. It was July 2006, Jan and Kevin were at home and some people you don't know show up and maybe I'll start with you. When they show up at the door. So we were getting ready to go down the shore, it was a Friday. So we're in the kitchen and they come to the back door. I thought that they were fundraising. I thought they might have been firemen just by the blue shirt and then realized that they were law enforcement. Two women and I think two men. More came up from around the side of the house. And they show us their badges. Were they cops or? They were a homeland security. They took me outside. And they kept me and they asked me to stay in the kitchen and they had a woman with me. I didn't know what was going on. Nobody said anything to me. What are they saying to you on the porch? I mean, while. When they showed up, I got to the door. We said, you know why we're here? I said, yeah, I do. I was expecting you. And I showed them where everything was. This story about Kevin and his wife, Janet, inspired us to do the entire hour. Because one of the most basic things that we do as people is we judge. We judge one another. We judge what's right. Judge what's wrong. But this story and the two that follow. They will make you judge how you judge. Or at least they had that effect on us. And we're calling our show. Blame. I'm Chad Abumron. I'm Robert Crowley, which we'll go back to Pat. Before we do, you should know that this show contains some graphic, difficult descriptions in a few spots. If you're not in the mood or if you have kids around, you might want to sit this one out. Okay, so what happened in that first scene and what happened next only makes sense if we go back a little first. About 15 years. It's just an ordinary day. Kevin's going home from work. And I was driving home going about 65, 70 in the fast lane. When suddenly there was a thump in my chest. Then he just a heat burning. After that, he said suddenly he had this thickness in my tongue in my throat. Then a valetaste in his mouth. Then my hearing faded out. And he thought it's back. What I finally did come to, he sees his car smashed into the side of an apartment building. I do recall the officers telling you you've been in an accident, you've been in an accident. And he remembers one of them insisted that he smelled alcohol. And I was talking through clunch teeth because I had bit my tongue and my cheeks. I was saying over and over again, I had a seizure. I had a seizure. Kevin's got epilepsy. He's had it since he was a teenager. But two years before this all happened, he'd had surgery to remove the part of his brain that was causing the seizures. And it seemed to have worked. He was doing great. Essentially wasn't having seizures anymore. Until suddenly he was. Lost your license? Lost my license for a year. Things had kind of taken a noose dive. A cure he is, he's 35 years old. I'm living with my brother. I'm divorced. And I have to call my daddy and ask him now to drive me to and from work. And you think I need to do something? This is not sustainable. No. No, don't need that. So I walked into the office. S.H.R. Person where he works for a list of all the employees. Give me a list of everybody where they're from. So she pulled it up, I go down the list and I get to Janet Woodruff Bloomfield. Only when it's really close to me, five minutes away. So I walk to her cube, knocked on the wall and introduced myself. Like hey, my name is Kevin. I also work here. I've got this thing though, just kind of awkward. I can't drive. And I was wondering if you'd give me a ride. And she said yes. I really passed by his street. I mean, on the way to work. So it was-- Like right on his street. Pretty much. But I made it clear, you know, I'll do it when I can. And as they drove together, they-- Start talking, finding out a little bit more about each other. Notice it pretty quickly. We like the same music. And that was unique because I sort of like music that was probably more in his error. Kevin was seven years older than Jan. What kind of music were you listening to? Jackson Brown, mostly. A lot of Jackson Brown, James Taylor. You just call-- Bonnie Rate. You know, Elton John. It found themselves singing along to the lyrics. You cannot sing with somebody day in and day out and not have something happen. We wound up as a spring came, you know, it's getting nice out. So now it's like, well, let's not go home. Let's go out for a beer after work. We're becoming good friends. We liked each other. But for Kevin, it was a little more serious than that. I'm thinking about her. And I'm starting to wake up at night. And one day in May, as Janet is dropping him off, Kevin turns to her and he says, Hey, I really appreciate what you've done for me. Let me take you to dinner. Just as friends. Just as friends. Janet says, sure. So May 30th, 1992. High-low and pavilion. Niceest restaurant in town. So your friend takes you to a four-star restaurant. You're thinking right away, he thinks this is a date. We're going on a date. Come on. So now I'm panicked, stricken. We have our dinner. We leave. We had a wonderful time. She drops me off and I handed her the poem. What did the poem say? Do you still have it? Yeah, I do. OK. This is a little slower. Each time we sing on the way home, I pray that traffic backs up so we can sing together just a little longer and the harmony can go on forever. And each time we reach my door, I feel robbed because we're always in mid-song or mid-thought. If only I could-- He gets out and goes inside and probably thinks, awesome, I gave her the poem. She's going to be so smitten with me and you go home and what? Want to throw up. I just thought, oh god, you know-- Next day. I just looked at him and said, listen, we got to clarify. This is clearly just going to be a friendship. He was seven years older than me. He had these brain surgery. He has epilepsy. He's divorced. He has two children. Compassion here? Are you catching the compassion here? Try, I'm trying. He's just like, I'm not asking you to marry me. I'm asking you to go out on a few dates. Exactly. If you go out with me like four times in the next six months, I'm ahead of the game. He just handled it. And I don't think it was long at all. I can't even remember, but it wasn't long at all before we were like a couple. [MUSIC PLAYING] And Kevin? I'm Dopey. Dopey in love. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's doing romantic things for her all the time. Flowers, poems, and-- Paintings. Illustration of the Jackson Brown cover. And within a year? We were engaged. [MUSIC PLAYING] But all the while, Kevin is having seizures. Yeah. Since the car accident, more and more. There was a point where we were obviously dating. She was up in a make his bed. And he says she pulled off the pillowcase. He's covered with blood stains. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. You can count the number of seizures that I had in Bithramai tongue and blood. I knew nothing about epilepsy. I had never seen anybody have a seizure. In my past, those would have been big red flags that I would have just walked away, but I just went with it. And they both went with it for a few years. Until finally, Kevin and Jan decide this is enough. I wanted to be done with it. I just needed to be done with it. So they scheduled a brain surgery. Which sounds like a big deal. And obviously it is. But they had every reason to think that this wouldn't change him. I honestly thought that he was going to come out of it and find a better. Because that should happen the first time. Kevin had actually gone through a brain surgery. Much like this one once before. And he'd come out pretty much the same guy. He was still himself. In fact, he made sure of it. I was awake for the surgery. And that's crazy. Yeah, it was. I had to be awake. I had to do with music. Kevin is a musician. And the doctors told him, they said that if I lost anything, I was going to lose my appreciation for music. That it would be like music would be white noise. I said, no. For me, music is part of my personality. It was how I coped with my darkest moments in dealing with epilepsy and seizures. At 18 years old, I'd have a seizure. I'd take my harmonica. And I'd find a place with decent reverb somewhere and be right where I needed to be. I didn't want to lose that part of me. So as the doctors were doing the brain surgery, they had his head open. They asked him to sing. Remember what you sang? End of the innocence. Some James. Taylor. And while he's saying they would tickle different parts of his brain and if they ever touched a part that made him stop singing They'd say okay, that's a part we cannot take out. Wow. Yeah, and in the end I think they ended up taking out like four and a half centimeters like a gall you know a little bit bigger than a golf ball Wow, but afterwards as he was recovering I had my keyboard in the room and I tried playing right away And it worked the part of him that he really cared about was still there exactly. Yeah, it was a man I fell in love with after the first surgery, so I thought well, you know now that they've got to do a second surgery He's already been there in this road. We're fine and After that second surgery, he did team fine Janet didn't have her brother sneak my my keyboard up to the room again He was very very adamant that he wanted that keyboard. I played a little Just noodle the couple of notes play a couple of things and it was like okay, I'm there still me. I was ready to go So you go home and like it seems to have worked Yeah, for seizures go we thought okay, this is it we're home free and I was just happy to have some normalcy But then in the winter by by beginning the middle of January Kevin noticed he wanted to eat my physical appetite a lot more than usual got like insane This is a guy who didn't eat breakfast. He had minimal lunch and he'd have a sensible dinner. Maybe a snack that was it But now I get eat the couch. It just was odd. It was not him normally, but you know, you're like okay She thought maybe it's just a side effect from the medications, but then the piano You play the piano for hours the same songs these to sing in the car together. He has stuck on a piece. He would play for hours How many hours eight eight nine and then there was sex You know, we were happy healthy couple Kevin's nodding. Yeah, yeah, it was fine But what was abnormal was it was it was anywhere clearly wasn't like oh we're in the supermarket Let's have sex here. I mean it wasn't like that But I mean it was like I could just walk in the kitchen from man out of work and he'd be like oh you let's go here Which struck her as weird, but then again we were thinking you know, let's try to have a family So the timing made things confusing and more than that it wasn't like any of this stuff was out of character exactly In fact, it was all stuff that she liked about him. Yeah, except now it was all turned up to 11 all the things that were wonderful became chores And that's pretty much where things were at when those federal agents showed up in July of 2006 I was just completely blindsided. We said you know why we're here. I said yeah, I do I was expecting you Kevin took the agents upstairs I took him right into here where my computer was and they arrested him for what was on that computer I gave it up to him right away Warning this next passage contains some graphic imagery I mean I I hadn't I don't know if I had fully like I Think I had just like let child porn be this kind of vague thing that meant Someone younger than 18 But then I read some of the court documents and there were like toddlers there were picked videos of 23 and four year olds there there are these sites had the most Dispicable disgusting things you can you can imagine infants on throw You know pre preteen and you know pre-adolescence and adolescents Yeah, it bought and you bought these things and put them on your computer. I Yeah Yeah, it bothers me it bothers me Like like I said initially it was you know, it was just your basic your basic you know Heteros heterosexual playboy like penthouse like sites and then Windows would just start to open up pretty soon. He says He was going everywhere there was gay sex they were for I mean that there was there was bondage there was Defication sex there was animal sex Xenosex I went everywhere that a button came up To push I I Still don't understand it. I still I still don't understand it You say it disturbs you and you feel terrible. I just like wonder like how do you Do you tell yourself like that wasn't me like how do you explain it to yourself to so that you can kind of I don't know not feel like you're Has bad as the person who goes there Without a brain injury is you know like Well, I know I Say that again, I guess I'm just wondering I don't know like knowing that that's a thing that you did and it sounds like Obviously you know that that was bad. It was a wrong thing and so terrible thing But it was it was you who did it or was it not? I don't know you know what I mean? No, it was it was me who did it But it was me with a complete lack of neurological control You know, I mean I I know I Know who I am I did Idiotic things that I couldn't stop myself from doing. I didn't want to do it There would be nights where it would be four or five six hours of going to the same site and and and Downloading one or two files and then deleting them going back a minute later Downloading the same files deleting them. I would download those files a dozen times and delete them a dozen times because I didn't want to be there No, I shouldn't be there and couldn't help myself from going back. I'm not an idiot. I mean I'm I'm a smart guy. I'm not an idiot But I know I had no control and That's what he would argue in court Can we plead guilty but at the sentencing hearing he asked the judge to be lenient Arguing essentially that the person who did all those things in some sense wasn't him It was some other part of his brain that he couldn't control That the hearing he called one witness or in Davinsky I'm an neurologist and epilepsy specialist at NYU Medical Center He's been treating Kevin for decades 20 20 some odd years and he says as soon as he found out what Kevin had been doing had a terrible sense of Responsibility this is because of the brain surgery the surgery or in recommended he have Any argued in court that this was not Kevin's fault. I remember looking at those agents right in their face and Saying to them and to the judge This could be anybody this could be those agents judge this could be you this could be me This could be anybody and we would have no control over what we did and explain to the court what the biology was That the way the brain is organized that there are parts of our brain that are way deep down The control like base desires like hunger sex keeps us alive But it's teaming with the nastiest thoughts we all have these crazy thoughts in our head now and most of us those thoughts are kept in check because there are other parts of our brain that sit on top And act like a lid But in Kevin's case the brain surgeon who did that surgery removed part of that filter And suddenly the court was off I mean, there was just no lid on his sexual desires He says scientists have known about this condition for a long time they first saw in monkeys and Reese's monkeys when the monkeys would lose Roughly the same part of the brain that Kevin lost they became very hypersexual males that would only previously be sexually involved with females Now we're ten times more sexually active with both males and females They but it feels to me feels to me like there's a there would be a brighter line before Kids, you know I think there is a line for quote unquote normal individuals But in a brain disorder case those lines get blurred And he told the court that's what happened here was black and white Kevin was sick and his behavior was out of his control well That's not what the facts showed in this case. This is Lee Barton who was the prosecutor We saw no evidence of impulsivity. He says if you're claiming that he had no control that his brain made him do it Then how come he had all this child porn on his home computer? I believe it was 52 videos and 125 images and yet on his work computer There were zero images zero videos of child pornography on his work computer and he worked a lot He held down a job. He was working every day if he truly lacked impulse control I would think you would see child pornography on both computers and somebody argued back was what was the lid on at work and Off at home seems to me to be an easy out So the answer is that this is common with neurologic disease. They tend not to be 24/7 is this take something like Tourette some people when they're engaged in playing sports They tend not to have tics whereas when they're sitting around board or stressed they do tend to have tics So you could say well Tourette clearly isn't a neurological disorder, but note Tourette is a neurologic disorder We understand some of the brain things that go on Tourette's the prosecution didn't buy it. They just thought it was hogwash What was hogwash was his level of certainty? The prosecution asked the Kevin B. Senta prison for five years Because in paying for child porn he was supporting an industry that does terrible things to kids Kevin hoped he'd avoid jail time altogether and instead be placed on house arrest How is pro Janet? Right after the arrest. I have to imagine that you were in shock a little like yeah, she'd gone to see a lawyer and One of the questions he asked was is this marriage going to survive this. And I said, I don't know. And at that point, I didn't even know the level of pictures. But she says the moment she heard Orrin say that this was a brain disorder with a name. It's called clover-beauty syndrome. Once I was able to get that, for me, it clicked. She couldn't blame it. We have these experts saying that it was a disease and I kept thinking they'll understand. I had to mention that after Kevin was arrested and got on a bail, Orrin gave him some medication. And Janet says it was like flipping a switch. That's exactly what it was. It was like, I got him back. I was able to sit and watch a movie with her. You know, normal. Janet actually says in a lot of ways, those few months between the arrest and the sentencing hearing, they'd been the best months of an marriage. He now is just so much easier, calmer. You could just talk. The hearing took about three hours and when it was over, the judge took a recess, went into her chambers. When she came back, she delivered her decision. She actually wouldn't talk to me for the story, but I have the transcript from the hearing. And if you remember, the prosecutor's leave, Artann was asking for five years. Sixty-three months. Orrin, Kevin Janet, we're hoping for-- House arrest. Meaning no jail time. There's no way they're going to put him in jail. This is clear cut. And here's what the judge does. She says, I do agree with Orrin. He is a neurological disorder. No question. So we can't be helpfully responsible for his behavior. She was getting it. On the other hand, she said the prosecution did have a point that he was very much in control of his impulses. At least some of the time. And so the question for the judge was, how does a legal system assign blame when a person is sometimes themselves in control and sometimes not? "Well, this was a crime," she said, "a crime which ultimately leads to children being harmed and considering that you did have moments where you were in control. Then in those moments, you had a responsibility. You could have done something. You could have asked for help. You could have told the people around you what you were doing. So even if you couldn't have stopped yourself, they could have stopped you." She made it very clear that we have to do something here. And so she sent us a sentence, 26 months, out of federal prison, and 25 months of house arrest. And I believe that she was fair and I believe she was compassionate. In about a week before Christmas, in 2008, she ended drove him to prison. How long was he even jail for? About two years. And she was even though the judge said, you know, he is responsible. Did that change her attitude toward him at all? No, they totally stuck together. She visited him pretty much every weekend the whole time. I knew the route and I had my own little routine down. In between visit, she'd send up notes. And I'll never forget, he could send me mail in the store where he could get some cards. Super hallmarkie. And he would like alter them. And I remember the very first card I got. It was this very, you know, beautiful, supposedly. It's supposed to be beautiful, but it was like, you know, if you need anything, you know, anything at all, just let me know. And then he writes, of course, if it's pressing, you might want to ask someone else because I'll tell you, you can wait 24 months. And I remember getting that and just laughing. And then that became our thing, like, listen, this is a horrible situation, but we're going to make the best of it. Tell me a little bit about like where things are at now. I think things are almost normal. You know, I am still on probation. He's home. He's working. Life is going on. We have our normal routines. Kevin still takes those medicines that keep the other part of him in check. I have no libido at all, but I know who I am. I know what I am. I'm disturbed by that portion of my life, but I'm trying to move on. I'm not going to be able to do that. Producer Pat Walters. Thanks also to neurologist Ornda Vinsky for connecting us to Kevin and Janet. Stay with us. We'll be exploring these questions of blame and responsibility even more deeply the next segment, even yell about it a little. Yeah. Coming up. Hi, I'm Nick and I'm from Minneapolis. Radio Lab is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.Sloan.org. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. These are just some of the therapists who are getting shouted out on BetterHelp.com. And BetterHelp says some of its best reviews are for the therapists themselves. According to BetterHelp, their providers maintain a live therapy session rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars based on over 1.7 million client session reviews. BetterHelp says its therapist must have at least 3 years and 1000 hours of hands-on experience in addition to holding all required certifications across a range of specialties. And BetterHelp says it's easy to get started with one of their therapists. Answer a few questions, get matched based on your needs, and switch therapists at any time if it's not the right fit. See the reviews, see what stands out, and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit BetterHelp.com/RadioLab. That's BetterHELP.com/RadioLab. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is fighting for its life. I've never been a big fan of FEMA. It really does you get the job done, you know. FEMA's a disaster. FEMA's a dirty word. People are waking up and droves to the FEMA camps. How did the agency tasked with saving us become so distrusted and despised? On this week's On the Media from WNYC. Find On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Chad Abumran. I'm Robert Crowlewitch. Today on RadioLab, blame. In the story we just heard, we were wrestling with a very difficult question. When somebody has a brain injury and commits a crime, just how much do we blame them and how much do we blame the brain? Yeah. And as it turns out, this question? Hi. Hi, this is Chad. Hi, Chad. This is Nita. That question is popping up more and more in court cases. We're increasingly you will find defendants like heaven arguing. Okay. You've convicted me of a crime, but you should go easier on me because I have these neurological problems. So this is Nita Farahani. Professor of Law and Philosophy and Professor of Genome Sciences and Policy at Duke University. She's been following this whole sort of emerging field of neuro law for quite a while. And back in 2006, it occurred to her. Okay, lots of people are interested in this field, but nobody has any good data. So I started counting cases, try to see. To try to see how many times does brain science come up in court? Now, the only data that should get her hands on were written opinions, which turns out doesn't happen that often. Like, really, it happens in like 1% of court cases. But in that 1% of cases, she saw a steady increase and relatively dramatic. You have a couple of years, 2005 and 6, it had about 100 cases, 2007, 8, 9, 200, some cases. And then 11, 12, you're in the 300s. All told. Between 2005 and 2012, it's about 1,600 cases. But 1600 cases that are kind of like the Kevin case where someone maybe argues, look, it's not entirely my fault. My brain made me do it. We used a little bit. Yeah. And by the way, that number was just in the 1% she had access to. So the other 99% of cases may actually have a whole lot more. Yep. Wait a second. Is this a new development? What do you mean? Like, you know, in West Side Story, there's this character, an officer crunky and he goes, and he is these juvenile delinquents, this is back in the 50s, and they're saying, everything is someone else's fault. So they have bad parents and they have poverty and they have passion and they have youth and they plead all these things. If you just add it to the list, tumor, that's pretty much the same thing. Well, maybe, no. There seems to be something more compelling for both judges and juries when you are able to have actual brain scans. You know, or EEG or whatever, because now you can say to the officer crunky, look, I know this might sound like an excuse, but check out this spot right here. Here's the proof. I don't have a normal brain, you know, and I didn't choose not to have a normal brain, so how can it be completely my fault? Well, doesn't that sound a little bit like a little too easy? Maybe. I mean, I guess it depends on the specific case, but just in the abstract, let me give you the best version that I've ever heard of this argument. Okay. This is what made me really stop and think. It comes from the, from my psychologist, Kevin Dutton. He was interviewed on the Scientific American podcast and he gave this hypothetical. Imagine if you've got a deaf person, okay, and you've got a child in a burning building, and you've got that child screaming out, but the deaf person can't hear the screams. So you wouldn't necessarily blame, you wouldn't hold that deaf person culpable for that child's death if the child died. You agree so far? Yes. By the same token, if you are emotionally deaf, if you can physically here the screams but emotionally you just don't have that kind of neural kick up the backside to go in and save that child isn't that the same thing. And when you start thinking about that is a whole kind of moral conundrum that starts coming out of that because damage to the ear is damaged to a physical structure, damage to the brain is also damaged to a physical structure. So here's the moral conundrum I think he's referring to. If we go along with this idea that we can use brain abnormalities to defend ourselves in court, well that's going to lead us into some pretty weird places. As a society, things make it very, very complicated. As we learn, we got into a little tussle. All right. Okay. With this guy. Sorry, so you put this on. That is a little chillion here. This is David Eaglin. I'm a neuroscientist. He's a regular on our show. Is that what I'm supposed to say or that? He's spirited regular. Yeah. No, here's one of the most interesting parts. Here's his argument. Think about it technologically at the moment. Our best technologies in neuroscience are very crude. We can see when someone has a tumor or damage from traumatic brain injury or neurodegenerative disease, but it is quite crude still. The way he puts it looking for those brain abnormalities now is sort of like being up in space and looking down at the earth. You can't really see what's going on down there, but you can see the big shapes and the colors and every so often you notice something that's not supposed to be there like, whoa, what is that crater over there? If you see something that's big enough to see, you take a picture, you back in court, you show it to the judge and maybe she gives the guy a break. But then say you're up there and. Mission control. Everything looks normal up here. You don't see anything. Well then back in court, the judge is going to take a look at your apparently normal brain and say, sorry. Well that's your fault. It's not a biological problem. So we're just going to say, you're blameworthy. So that's where we are now. We draw the line at what we can see and what we can see is only the big stuff. But he says imagine forward. We'll have new technologies. We'll have XMRI instead of FMRI. And suddenly it's going to be like Google Maps. We're instead of being up in space. You can zoom in and now you can see everything. We'll have new names for disorders of the micro circuitry and so on. We'll certainly never get all the way to the end. But one day we may be able to say, like see that little bit of mangled wiring right over there? That is because his mom didn't love him enough or maybe he got bullied. Like we'll be able to see all that stuff almost as well as we can see brain tumors now. Because there is nothing special about brain tumors except for their visibility. Really what he's saying when you get down to it, his core belief is that you are your biology. Which is on some level kind of like whatever it does. But he takes it much farther. He says that almost everything that you go through in your life. All of your experiences, your culture, your history, your neighborhood, all of it is etched into the tissue of your brain. Right. There's nothing separate. Nothing. They cart famously suggested you've got the body, you know, the physical stuff and then you've got this extra bit, the soul, the ghost in the machine. But sort of the, you know, the inside word on that neuroscience is that, no, no, no. It's all the same thing. And now that we're beginning to see that, he says, actually see it. We are on a slippery slope. Because if you start letting people off the hook when you see a tumor, well then you're going to have to keep letting them off the hook when you see something smaller. Or smaller. Or smaller still. The point is, it cannot be a just legal system that in one decade says, well, you're blameworthy. Because for the moment we can't see anything on your brain. And then the next decade says, oh, you have Schmedley's disease. Hey, we can see it now. And we didn't realize that. So now you were lumping you over here with the people with the brain tumors. So then what does that mean? Like we have to let everybody off the hook. No, no blameworthiness is the wrong question for a legal system to ask. That's the point is that this whole notion about blameworthiness and saying, okay, if we have a biological mitigator, then we'll bring that up in court and we'll say, well, it's not exactly his fault. And if we don't have a biological mitigator, we'll say it is his fault. The reason none of this makes sense nowadays is because saying, was it the person's fault or was it something about his biology? Doesn't make sense as a question. They are inseparable. I have a version of that question. How about everybody should know that his brain isn't completely normal in this regard. And now the question is proportion. How much do you want to put on the brain and how much do you want to put on his. What else is there? Behavior, which comes from where? The ability to choose from the brain is choosy part of his brain as opposed to his unchusy part. Well, that's okay. That's what you're forcing me. I'm glad you're phrasing it this way because that's exactly the problem with our intuitions. We have this intuition that, yeah, your brain might look like this. You have these genes, you have these experiences. That makes your biology like this. Oh, but in the end that doesn't matter because you've got this other thing that's independent of the biology. But we don't. You are brain. Your brain, however, nevertheless helps you decide things. Brains help you choose. So the question I'm asking you is that they're helping? Who's the, you're helping the bearer of the brain, the owner of the brain. And that's separate from the brain? Do you, why do you keep doing this to me? I know that if I have a tootsie role in front of me and an M and M, I can choose the M and M. So I assume my brain is doing something. And the question I want to ask you is, how much am I choosing? And how much am I really outside of choosing because something irregular in my brain is choosing for me. And that seems to me to be a way to do it. So this, but this is fascinating because the way you're phrasing it suggests that there's. There's you. And then there's your brain. And there's things in your brain that might be telling you what you don't want. And telling you what you don't want to do, but it's all one system is the thing. So when you're faced with the tootsie role versus the whatever else in M and M, everything in your life leading up to that moment from your genetic history written on in visibly small strands of nucleic acids all the way up to every experience you've ever had leads to that choice. What would it even mean to make a choice completely independent of your brain? Okay, I'd like to. I'd like to. One more time. I'd like to. What about like the ten commandments? Those are like the. Those are. Okay, I'm just gonna jump in for a second. At this point, things kind of slid off the rails. We ended up talking about the ten commandments, debating the question of free will. If free will exists at all, it's a really small part of this system. No. We went back and forth about whether you can overcome your upbringing, which obviously you can. Oh gosh, no you can't. Sure you can. No you can't. I can go to the library and I can only. That's not what you're that type of person. Anyhow, after an hour, we've finally got back around to David's main point, which is that the legal system would be a hell of a lot better off, he says. If we forgot about blame altogether, forget if it's someone's fault, that's a dead end, he would say. The better way to do it, he thinks, is to focus on this. Probability of future recidivism. You mean like, will they do it again? That's right, that's exactly it. How would you ever know? Here's how. You crunch the numbers. So this has already happened in the world of sex offenders, where there have been long-term studies following out. Here's the way it already works, he says, which he thinks is model. When a sex offender comes up for parole, someone at the corrections office will grab their record and ask a bunch of questions. What was the victim choice? Was it somebody they knew or was it somebody outside of their family? Was it a minor? Was it a victim male or female? Was it somebody their age? What was the crime type? All these different questions. Then the evaluator will take some of the answers and give them points. Three, zero, two, one. That psychologist Amy Phoenix, she says researchers developed this point system based on years of studies of criminal behavior, massive amounts of data. And once you have all these points, you can add up a total score. And that score is supposed to tell you, is this guy likely to do it again or not? And here's the bottom line. Amy says, if you were to ask a parole officer with decades of experience to just use their gut, no numbers? We call that unguided clinical judgment. If you were to ask them for their unguided but expert clinical judgment. We'll Fred here, recidivate or not, what's your prediction? According to studies, those experts are correct. About 50% of the time. So you may as well flip a coin. On the other hand, she says if you have people just use the point system, no gut involved. The predictive accuracy would be about 70%. Wow, 70%. No humans involved. But here's the thing that sort of gives me pause. Like in order to get that accurate, you kind of have to turn people into data. You know? Yeah. I know it seems like, where's the humanity in that? But the question we have to ask is, compared to what? So the way it currently goes, ugly people get much longer sentences than attractive people in courts. This is a well-known bias from Jury's. Is that somehow better than having a scientifically informed legal system? Hmm. I have no response to that. I admit. Well. But love or will it? Love it? Yes. It's okay that pretty people get better sentences than ugly people. What? What? Because I don't know. I'm going out on the limits. See what happens when I finish this end. There we go. But because what we're describing here is humans judging humans. Not tables judging humans. Not data judging humans, but humans judging humans. So he went to do that with a certain amount of humanness. Maybe it's not very rational and maybe sometimes it's wrong-headed or unfair. But if you take the judgment away from the humans and you give it to a table, then you invite a different set of problems. Which is the chance for mercy. Which is a very big part of justice is off the table. Because statistics don't have mercy. have statistics. Amen. I know I'm nicely done. Robert, please do that. Let me say that that was a beautiful question. That is a beautiful question. So the notion of we should be merciful and so on. Of course that's all true, but the question is are we good at it? Are we good at knowing who is the right person to be merciful with? It ends up usually being the attractive person, right? And the person who's ugly and is missing teeth, we're usually not as merciful for. I wish this weren't. All right, let me just throw in one more objection to this. I mean, obviously, as a point. I guess so. But this whole thing that he's advocating for and he's not the only one of throwing out blame, focusing instead on what someone might do. Is that a world you would want to really live in? Need a fair honey that law professor put it this way? Imagine you do something small. So if I, you know, forge a check, minor offense, and in the process of arresting me and convicting me, maybe the courts do a brain scan? Or they do that number crunchy thing. Exactly. And they determine actually she has a predilection for far more serious crimes than check for origin. I mean, she hasn't done any of those things yet, but she could rob a bank. She could commit a violent crime. That's what the data shows. If all you're worried about is what she might do, then you can keep me in prison forever because what you've discovered is that I pose a real and future danger to society. I mean, you could basically convict someone of a crime that hasn't happened yet. Exactly. And not only that, if you think about this whole thing from a slightly higher altitude, according to Nita, when you blame somebody for something, there's a power to that act that goes beyond that one individual. There is value to society holding people morally accountable for wrongdoing. You're upholding this code that is important to all of us. It's what we've lived by and clung to for thousands of years. So you could argue that the act of assigning blame is sort of like reinforcing the scaffolding of society. It creates norms for people to follow. That makes perfect sense to me. Otherwise, we would be. Well, we would be like, I don't know what we'd be. So hey, so you're coming out for the Ten Commandments at the end of the day. Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. No, shut up. Let's just say he went there and he can't take it back. Don't draft me onto that team. This is Julia calling from Washington DC. More information about Sloan at www.slaan.org. This week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, Senator Bernie Sanders on the widespread concerns about AI data centers. They are conservatives, they are progressives, they are moderates and they're saying, what the hell are we doing? Why am I eating these large corporations owned by the wealthiest people in the world who could care less about me? Bernie Sanders on the New Yorker Radio Hour from WNYC. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. 3, 2, 1, hey, I'm Jan Abumran. I'm Robert Kroelwood. Today on Radio Lab, Blaine. So, your name again? Bianca. Yeah, and I'm a colleague. Thank you. Okay, so this is tape that was sent to us by a radio producer named Bianca Gaever. It's a time she was in college just starting out a bike and across the country. So yeah, we just got this grant to bicycle around this summer and it's called Davis Projects for Peace. Oh great. And she was riding through this part of Tennessee and ended up on this farm type place where she met this guy Hector. My name is Hector Black, 86, almost 86 and a half. When you get as old as I am, you add the half again like you did when you were three. And Hector ended up telling Bianca a story that in many ways turns everything we've learned in this hour on its head. So yeah, where would be the best parts place to start? I mean, I think the story starts when he decided to move to Atlanta because that's where Patricia was, his daughter. Okay. He had fought in the war as a combat engineer. World War II. I was not a good soldier. Went to Harvard, got a degree, met his wife Suzy and then I did join the civil rights work in the 60s. I think when Hector heard about the civil rights movement, he actually packed up his bags, moved to the neighborhood where Martin Luther King lived. He rented a house and said, "What can I do to help?" I felt I wouldn't really understand what was going on unless I lived there. That's when he meets Patricia. Girl in the neighborhood who came over all the time, just like a lot of kids, but she stuck around longer than anyone else. And at 11 years old, she asked them, "Will you adopt me?" Why young Slain did you adopt Patricia? What happened? Yeah, her mom was an alcoholic. Sometimes she drank up the rent money and the kids were out on the street with their mom and dad. Mom, there was no dad. So we took him in. She was very shy. She had impatigo sores on her legs. You know, nappy headed. Her mom and never braided her hair. She was just a really neglected chunk. And so she just blossomed. She got into reading, sewing, painting. She made all her own clothes. She was making bridal gowns as a second source of income. And then she went off to college. She came back and started teaching kids to read. She even took in a few kids just like he had done. Adopted a couple of kids? Yeah. She was a wonderful child. So unfortunately, the whole story changes now in November of 2000 because that's when Patricia was murdered. Ivan Simpson is the name of the man who killed her. He had broken into her house looking for money. And he strangled her. And later the autopsy showed he sexually assaulted her too. At first, you know, I yelled out, "Kill the bastard." You know, I thought what kind of a monster would do a thing like this. And he said for almost a year, he could not stop imagining. But he had done to her. These visions that come at me out of the blue just hit me. I just said no control. It was like he had control over me. Pushing my face in the mud. After Ivan had confessed, and this was right after the murder, Hector said part of him did want Ivan to get the death penalty. Yeah, I was furious. But then this other part of him was like, "No, this is a test. This was a test of his principles of his beliefs." And so he decided he would not pursue the death penalty. At the trial where he was sentenced. He refused to look at Ivan. Trisha's cousin got up first. She was just in tears and just said how much she hated him. I thought, "Oh, Lord, here I'm going to go say something that's probably going to hurt her feelings." When it came his turn. I had a written statement because I wasn't sure how steady my voice was going to be. But I was saying how much we love Patricia, how much he meant to us and how wounded we were by what had happened. I said, "I don't know if I've forgiven you, Ivan Simpson, but I don't hate you. I hate with all my soul what you did to my daughter." And then he worked up the nerve to turn around. To face him. To say the last thing I had written that I wish for all of us who had been so wounded by this crime, I wish that we might find God's peace. And I wish that also for you, Ivan Simpson. And he says, "When he looked up, tears were streaming down his cheeks." And as the first time I looked into his eyes and it was like a soul in hell. I was just undescribable looking there. In the end, I've ended up getting life in prison without parole. What happens next was so surprising and troubling to us, frankly, that we sent Bianca and our producer Andy Mills back down to Tennessee to talk to Hector again. Okay, so it's the night after the trial, Hector is laying in bed. In the Mattel, I couldn't sleep that night. And he kept thinking about that moment in the courtroom. I've never had a look like that my whole life, never before a sense. Over and over and over. And finally, he just gets up, he grabs the pen and paper and he starts writing. "I'm here, Ivan Christopher Simpson. I am writing because I wanted you to know how I feel after the court hearing Monday. When I turned around while I was reading my statement and looked at you, it was a very powerful moment for me. When you raised your tear-stained face to look at me, ever since this happened, I've been trying to find something good in all the horror and pain. I have tried to be a better person." And then he writes this line. Be as a way to push himself to be that better person. But he writes, "I forgive you." For what you did to our beloved daughter, I don't know if this will be of any comfort to you, but I wanted to tell you. We will both have to live our lives. lives with the pain of this deed always there. But Trisha tried to make the world a better place. We should also try. Did you think he would write you back after that? I didn't know. But about four weeks later, a letter shows up. Yes, this is it. Dear Mr. Hector Black and family, I first want to say, God bless you all in all things. Second, I have to go straight to the point. I know God has forgiven me. You have forgiven me, but I can't forgive myself. Not yet anyway. I have so much anger at myself right now. It's unbelievable. This hardness I have against myself, I will always be remorseful. I use to hear God speak to me. All the time. But I guess after what I did, he took away his touch from me. Right now, I miss his voice. I don't know the level of love Mr. Patricia had, but if it's anything like your example of it, it is great. God comfort you all in everything. Feel free to ask me anything you like. If I can, I will try to answer it. Dear Ivan, I was very glad to have your letter. I think it is important that we be as honest as possible with one another. And so I have to tell you that it is hard for me to write to you. I wanted to know who he was. I would really like to hear about your life, about the people who loved you, the people who hurt you, because I wanted to know what had happened to him that could make it possible for him to do a thing like this. Ivan writes, "Dear Hector, I was adopted when I was two days old." His mother was schizophrenic. Mrs. Simpson, the one I call mom now, took me in. He was raised by his grandmother's sister. She's 82 now. I used to have to stay over there with my natural mom, while Marie, my mom now, had to work. My natural mom used to beat me. Blurt out, I'm glad I got rid of you. When he was a little boy, maybe about 11 or so, she took him and his younger brother and his little sister to a swimming pool and she tried to drown all three. One sister died. He stood there while she drowned his little sister in front of him. System was horrible stuff. And so we asked him, having heard all this from Ivan, did he still blame Ivan? Or did he blame his mom or society or something else? Well, I do blame him. I mean, he made the choices. He made the choices. There's no doubt about that. But he says knowing this also made him want to write back. Dear Ivan. Until Ivan about his life. I grew up in New York City. His family. Two brothers. My parents argued and fought a lot. Basically, his whole life's story. I've always loved working with plants and after we left to find city and moved back to the country. And Ivan wrote back. Dear Hector, I was raised in the church, but after starting drugs in alcohol, I changed. Hector responded. Dear Ivan, I don't think God has abandoned you. Dear Hector, you're the only one writing to me now. We exchanged many, many letters. And at some point in this back and forth, this almost incomprehensible thing happens. Dear Hector, there are letters. First of all, thank you for the pictures. I never knew plum trees blossom really. Just become casual. My favorite bloom is the watered lily blossom. They talk about flowers. It's beautiful. Things they'd read. Dear Ivan, thanks for your letters. I've been closing a story someone said to be because I thought you would enjoy it. And sometimes. Dear Hector. Just the most mundane details of their day. Just sitting around this Saturday evening, been singing him as to myself. Basically, they became friends. You know, Hector, you're right. I do sense a bond developing unusual because of the circumstances. It's not at all what I expected to happen, you know. And it's just so absolutely crazy. You're actually the. Oh gosh. We started to send him Christmas packages. You know, and we see this box on the floor and that I think to myself, you crazy old man. You're sending Christmas packages to the man who murdered your daughter. What the hell is up with you? You know, it's just so cross. It's so totally out of, like I was out of orbit or something. And I guess I was because people don't do that. Maybe I'm trying to exact meaning from it. I don't know. Because I struggled so hard with why? Why? Eventually, after years of writing letters, Hector decided to ask that why question. In its most essential form, what happened that night? This might be a good time to say that this next part is disturbing. If you have kids or you're just not in the mood, now's a good time to duck out for a few minutes. Dear Hector, I wasn't going to tell you all what happened until you asked. I'm also glad you're relieving me of details. Also, God bless you. I went into the house around 7.30 pm. I'm used to breaking into place in the past, so I figured the house was total dark. So I broke out a whole window and climbed in. I took the VCR and TV and clock. I figured that was enough. Went and got $80 worth of drugs. I'm a heavy user, so it went in about one hour. So he made his way back to Trisha's house? It was still dark, so I went back in. He found his way into the bedroom. I saw a computer and stereo, so I said I take it. And that should last for the night. But I got trapped when I saw a car. So I hid until I could get back out the way I came. So I saw a lady walk to the room. I tried to be quiet so I could escape when she opened the door to a closet. I was hiding. As she stepped back, she fell. I told her I was going to tie her up. So I would have time to get away. She said, "Okay, sir." Her glasses fell off and at no time she saw my face. So I told her I was going to take the car so I could load it up. She gave me the keys. So I told her after I found out her name. I said, "Patricia, I know you're scared, but I will be out of here in about 15 minutes." Then she said, "You should get help with your drug problem." I told her I tried in the past, but I restarted. Yeah, that's that's Trisha. She had no compunctions about telling people off when they were in the room. And then I said, "I'm sorry for this. I'm going to leave your car in the shopping center up the street next to the Chinese restaurant because all I need the car for was to transport the items I had." And even though Trisha was tied up around her hands, she went into the kitchen and warmed up some chicken and rolls for Ivan. Then I said, "I'm sorry." And I left again. I got rid of the things. Got about $200. Well, $100 drugs and $100 cash. Then I said, "Well, I just parked the car at the end of the driveway then I couldn't wait. I pulled over and smoked some of the crack cocaine." And at this point, he's really high. And he explained that when he gets this high, he sometimes hears a male voice in his head. And as he was walking away, the voice said to him, "He said, "Well, go get you some sex. I told him, leave me alone, but next thing I know I'm walking back to her house. No police had come." He burst through the door, ran to where Patricia was tied up and said, "Did you have any money cash?" She said, "Look in my purse." And then Ivan said that the voice in his head became his own voice. And he said to her, "I want some sex." She said, "Sir, you've been so nice. Why don't do that?" He said, "Only way you're going to do this if I'm dead." Okay then, and it happened. He strangled her. It was actually assaulted her. Then he ran away. It's around 2 a.m. I ran out of drugs. He said that after he finished getting high, he started to wonder if he had drumped it all up. So he made one last trip back to Patricia's house. So I looked up at the house, no police, and gates to Lopen. So I had peeps through the door. She was still laying there. So I said, Patricia, Patricia. And then the voice in his head told him to go back in one more time. He sexually assaulted her. I couldn't believe what happened. So went to my mom. His adopted mother. And I said, "Mama, it's something wrong. Mama's something wrong." She said, "Child, tell me what you're talking about." I couldn't tell her. I was really hoping they would kill me in the electric chair because I couldn't be able to live with myself and God after what I had done. I just don't know why I had to do it. Was it because of the items and the money? No. Getting caught later on in life. No. Control or power. No. Car. No. Because she saw my face. No. She didn't see me at no time. Fingerprints left on something. No. I just don't understand why I did it. While I feel the pressure has left me for telling you first what happened. My mom doesn't even know. I've been keeping all this inside and it hurts so. I'm truly sorrowful for what happened. May God bless you all, sincerely, Ivan. Did it help in any way to know? Yes. I mean, that sounded exactly like Trish. But she was really a fearless. I mean, she must have been a-- I can't imagine what a horrible-- Oh, God. I was just amazed that she could be so strong. Just amazed. Because when you love somebody very much, you want to know about their last hours. And he just wrote it in a way that I found very kind. I mean, if you go to a kind as a weird word to put there. But-- but that's the word he chose. Kind. After that letter, they still write? Yeah, they still write. They've been writing for 10 years now. And Hector has folders and stacks of these papers in his basement. It's only room in his house that he keeps locked. Producer Bianca Gavre. Thanks also to our own Andy Mills. Thanks to you for listening. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, it's David Eelman. This is Bianca Gavre. This is Dr. Amy Pina. OK, this is Hector Brat calling reading her text. Here's the text that you sent me. Real lab is produced by-- By Jeff. God of 'em, rock. Our staff includes Ellen Horn. Sharon Wheelow. At Walter's, Tim Howard. Anna Farrell, Molly Webster. Melissa O'Donnell, Dylan Keith. Lynn Levy, and Andy Mills. With help from Seattle. That is Eric Lemons. And you're truly the Chinver Nanny. Special thanks to Steve Mercedy. Stay out with him. Michael May. And Jesse Bearing. I guess that's it. Bye. And this message.