Panelists shared their considerable insights into how neuroscience is reshaping actions police, lawyers, and judges take when interacting with individuals suffering serious mental health disorders, how neuroscience is reconfiguring the law’s approach to concussion and malingering, and other groundbreaking research occurring in the field.

In her welcome remarks, Neuroscience and Law Center Founding Director Deborah W. Denno told conference participants that the event epitomized the rapid development of the shared pursuits of legal and medical professionals to create a more just criminal justice system, and the center’s unique position as a hub for scholars, researchers, practicing lawyers, and judges. Notably, the center is home to the most comprehensive legal database of its kind on neuroscience use in the courtroom.

“Fordham’s Neuroscience and Law Center takes an interdisciplinary and evidence-based approach to studying how neuroscience is being used in the legal system and the real world to assess its impact on current decision-making, as well as to anticipate how this information should be used in the future,” Denno explained. In the near future, the center intends to expand its research into how neuroscience intersects and impacts with civil and corporate law, she noted.

Denno later outlined her research on 800 criminal cases that have addressed neuroscience evidence over a two-decade period during the day’s second panel, “Creating Groundbreaking Research on Neuroscience and Law.” Moderated by Fordham Law Professor Bruce Green, the panel also featured the insights of the Hon. Bernice B. Donald of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit who discussed implicit bias in the criminal justice system. In addition, Arielle Baskin-Sommers presented her latest research on psychopathy and Tom Tyler discussed the implications of adolescent brain development for both the criminal justice system and for schools. Baskin-Sommers and Tyler are both in the Department of Psychology at Yale University.

The opening panel featured presentations by New York County District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. and New York City Police Department Deputy Commissioner Susan Herman, both of whom detailed how their respective agencies are responding to the needs of individuals with mental illness. Fordham Law Professor James Kainen moderated the panel.

Vance noted that 56 percent of state prisoners nationwide and 60 percent of jail inmates have some mental health problem, adding that often the criminal justice system sends these people to prison without “being responsible enough” to pay for their mental health support in prison, to ensure an increased likelihood of success when they are released.

“Mental illness is a big problem in terms of bringing people into our system, and if we want healthy communities and healthy families, we’re going to have to invest money at the local level,” Vance said, emphasizing that local investment is particularly important in 2018 because the federal government is pulling back its support for these programs.

To this end, the New York County District Attorney’s Office is investing $250 million over the next five years into crime prevention strategies, including youth hubs that will provide services to neighborhoods that those neighborhoods specifically requested. Neighborhood residents will provide the services, Vance added.

The New York Police Department is opening new community health diversion centers in Manhattan and the Bronx this year, Herman shared, to provide support for individuals with mental illness. A police officer must accompany the individual—who has either committed a low-level violation or police believe has a mental health or substance abuse problem—to the diversion center, Herman said.

Neuroscience will eventually be used to predict future violent behavior and recidivism—predictions that could lead down a slippery slope, said Leah G. Pope, director of the Vera Institute of Justice’s Substance Use and Mental Health Program, during comments made during the first panel. On the other hand, neuroscience could also provide “great value” in shedding light on the impact conditions of confinement have on the brain and also rehabilitation possibilities for individuals with serious mental illnesses, Pope continued.

The conference concluded with afternoon panels on “The Challenge of Malingering: Symptoms Real, Imagined, and Pretended,” moderated by Fordham Law Professor Kimani Paul-Emile, and “Reconceptualizing Concussion in Law: The Increasing Influence of Neuroscience,” moderated by Fordham Law Professor Clare Huntington.

—Ray Legendre

But it has primed him—the first in his family to graduate from college—to make an impact on the criminal justice system, he said.

And as an added bonus, Xiang, who gets his diploma on Monday, May 23 from the law school, will be doing it in the borough where he was born.

Xiang’s parents immigrated to the Bronx from Guangzhou, China, but eventually moved to Elmhurst, Queens. Xiang grew up there as an only child, and returned to the Bronx for school—he was admitted to the prestigious Bronx High School of Science.

He did his undergraduate studies at Hunter and Stony Brook colleges, where he tried his hand at chemistry before realizing he wanted to spend more time with people. He settled on political science and Asian studies, and as part of his studies, he ventured to Tibet and Western China to study minority populations.

After he earned his degree, Xiang took some time to travel and “figure out” what was next. He lived briefly Texas and San Francisco, and then returned to New York City, where he worked as a bartender and waiter. He briefly considered pursuing a doctorate in Asian studies, but ultimately Fordham Law School attracted him. He said he felt it would deliver concrete results.

“At Stony Brook, I did a lot of research and a lot of writing, and it seemed like law was an area where I could use those skills to further my career,” he said.

Xiang found his calling in law when he was given the opportunity to work in Syracuse for the Honorable Frederick J. Scullin Jr., justice of the Northern District of New York. His colleagues spoke of putting in long hours that they found worthwhile, because they could see the tangible benefits of serving in the community. Xiang became intrigued.

“That’s really what I wanted to do. I’d done a lot of jobs where I worked a lot of long hours, but those jobs didn’t resonate very well with me,” he said. “Law is for a good purpose, and you can see the effects on the community. That matters to me.”

Xiang initially considered doing defense law, but he says he wants to be a prosecutor who is in a position to effect change from within. He credits some of this perspective to having studied in China, where the government is fully in control of the justice system.

When those on the outside pushing for change find no one on the inside is listening, change becomes a Sisyphean task, he said.

“If you only have very conservative prosecutors who believe every small crime should be prosecuted to the full extent, then [you won’t find]more reasonable prosecutors who will balance the sentencing and balance the prosecution,” Xiang said.

“Do you want to really put someone with a small marijuana offense away from their family for five years? Does it benefit their family? Does it do society any good? Is there a sense of justice? These are the questions that you ask yourself.”

He credits professors Mark Costello, adjunct professor of law, Ted Neustadt, legal writing professor and associate director of legal writing, Deborah Denno, PhD, Arthur A. McGivney Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Neuroscience and Law Center, and Clare Huntington, associate dean for research and professor of law, for helping guide him. He is also proud to have formed a tight group of friends, many whom are also taking jobs in district attorneys’ offices in New York City. Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island have all recently elected new DAs, which makes prosecutorial work exciting area of law to work these days, he said.

“All my life I’ve been watching New York change, and it’s interesting being part of that progressive front now as an adult,” he said.

“I’m glad I made the choice to go to Fordham because of the people I’ve met and the relationships I’ve built. It’s created a foundation for who I want to be.”

In a new book, Fordham law professor Clare Huntington points out the many ways in which our society and its laws drive families apart rather than bring them together—and she offers numerous ideas for change.

The book, due out in June, Failure to Flourish: How Law Undermines Family Relationships (Oxford University Press, 2014), touches on everything from transportation policy and zoning law to divorce procedures and the child welfare system.

“The heart of the book is the argument that strong, stable, positive relationships in families, especially between parents and children, are essential for individuals and for society,” she said.

But obstacles to those relationships can be seen everywhere—for instance, in zoning laws that foster suburban sprawl and long commutes, depriving families of time together, and in family leave policies that guarantee parents only unpaid leave to care for a new child, making parents choose between putting food on the table and bonding with a newborn.

Also straining families are many of the practices embedded in our legal system—such as the adversarial, “scorched-earth” approach to determining where a child will live after a divorce, Huntington said. This approach “completely disregards the reality that long after the judge and lawyers have gone home, the members of a family still have to relate to each other,” which can be difficult after a bitter custody battle.

Studies have found that fathers stay more engaged with their children over time if custody proceedings are more amicable, regardless of how much access to their children they receive as part of the settlement, she said. It’s growing more common for divorces to be mediated with the goal of restructuring family arrangements for the future rather than singling out the “better parent.”

Huntington’s book also deals with efforts to reduce the number of children placed in foster care, many of whom are there because their families are struggling with poverty related issues.

There are promising programs, such as the Nurse Family Partnership, which can prevent foster care placements by helping parents develop parenting skills, she said. And a relatively recent reform to the rules governing foster care allow a state to place a child permanently with a member of the extended family—with help from state subsidies—without adopting the child outright, thus preserving the parents’ place in the child’s life.

Huntington further called the prison system “the most stark example of how we undermine relationships between parents and children,” as parents are sometimes incarcerated for nonviolent offenses.

“The person who’s completely innocent—the child—is deeply affected by losing a father and oftentimes a mother,” she said. “When a father goes to prison, the child often loses contact with [him], and the family loses the benefit of the father’s earnings. When a mother goes to prison, the child is at risk for foster care placement.”

One solution she discussed is to incarcerate offenders closer to home so their children can at least visit them. Also, the Women’s Prison Association—on whose board she sits—helps female offenders secure alternative sentences. House arrest paired with social services allows offenders to keep their children at home while completing their sentences.

Other policy changes could enhance fathers’ involvement. “There are all kinds of ways in which the law drives the father away from the family,” she said, noting that some states’ rules grant the mother sole custody of a child if the parents are unmarried.

Granting unmarried fathers more rights would be one improvement, along with reforming the child support system to let fathers provide more direct assistance to their children, she said.
Huntington offers many more ideas for making laws more family friendly, one of which is requiring assessments of how families will be affected by major public works projects. She thinks of her book as “a liberal defense of the family,” in that it calls for families to receive strong government support and still recognizes the important place of the family in our society.

But she acknowledges the political obstacles to such an approach.

“There’s a real fear of the ‘nanny state,’ and an attachment to the idea of autonomy from the state,” she said. “People don’t want to acknowledge that most families receive support from the state, from public education to the mortgage interest deduction.”

It’s a convenient attitude in some ways: “If families are apart from the law, then whether they rise or fall is their own fault and their own problem, as opposed to saying, ‘We, society, have created the conditions under which you are living your family life, and these conditions deeply influence whether your family’s going to flourish or fail.’ The second formulation leads to affirmative responsibility on the part of the government.”

Aditi Bagchi,

associate professor of law, LAW,

“ESPN Accused in Dish Case of Giving Comcast Better Terms,” Bloomberg, February 11

Tom Beaudoin, Ph.D.,

associate professor of practical theology, GRE,

“Woodford and the Quest for Meaning,” ABC Radio, February 16

Mary Bly, Ph.D.,

professor of English, A&S,

“How do Bestselling Novelists Court Cupid on Valentine’s Day?,” Washington Post, February 14

James Brudney,

professor of law, LAW,

“Nutter Seeks High Court’s OK to Impose His Terms on City Workers,” Philly.com, March 1

Charles C. Camosy, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of theology, A&S,

“Drone Warfare Faces Barrage of Moral Questions,” Catholic San Francisco, February 20

Colin M. Cathcart, M.F.A.,

associate professor of architecture, A&S,

“New York City Traffic Ranked the Worst Among the Nation: Study,” AM New York, February 6

Saul Cornell, Ph.D.,

The Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History, A&S,

“After Newtown: Guns in America,” WNET-TV, February 19

Carole Cox, Ph.D.,

professor of social service, GSS,

“Boomer Stress,” Norwich Bulletin, February 19

George Demacopoulos, Ph.D.,

associate professor of theology, A&S,

“Pope Resignation,” ABC, World News Now, February 28

Christopher Dietrich, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of history, A&S,

“Bad Precedent: Obama’s Drone Doctrine is Nixon’s Cambodia Doctrine (Dietrich),” Informed Comment, February 11

John Entelis, Ph.D.,

professor of political science, A&S,

“John Brennan,” BBC Radio, February 9

Howard Erichson,

professor of law, LAW,

“High-Stakes Trial Begins for 2010 Gulf Oil Spill,” Amarillo Globe-News, February 25

Laura Gonzalez, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of finance, BUS,

“Recortes al Presupuesto Podrían Afectar el Seguro Social y Medicare,” Mundo Fox, February 8

Albert Greco, Ph.D.,

professor of marketing, BUS,

“Why Would Anyone Want to Buy a Bookstore?,” Marketplace, February 25

Karen J. Greenberg, Ph.D.,

director of the Center on National Security, LAW,

“Alleged Sept. 11 Plotters in Court, but Lawyers Do the Talking,” National Public Radio, February 11

Stephen R. Grimm, Ph.D.,

associate professor of philosophy, A&S,

“Grants from Foundations and Corporations of More Than $100,000 in 2013,” Chronicle of Philanthropy, February 28

Tanya Hernandez, Ph.D.,
professor of law, LAW,

“Brazil’s Affirmative Action Law Offers a Huge Hand Up,” Christian Science Monitor, February 12

J. Patrick Hornbeck, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of theology, A&S,

“Vatican Conclave,” Huffington Post, March 4

Robert Hume, Ph.D.,

associate professor of political science, A&S,

“USA: Supreme Court Case Update – DOMA/Prop 8 Briefs Streaming In,” Gay Marriage Watch, February 28

Clare Huntington,

associate professor of law, LAW,

“Sunday Dialogue: How to Give Families a Path Out of Poverty,” The New York Times, February 9

Nicholas Johnson,

professor of law, LAW,

“Neil Heslin, Father of Newtown Victim, Testifies at Senate Assault Weapons Ban Hearing,”Huffington Post, February 27

Michael E. Lee, Ph.D.,

associate professor of theology, A&S,

“Tiempo: Watch this Week’s Show,” WABC 7, February 17

Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.,

professor of theology, A&S,

“Remembering Benedict — the Teacher, the Traditionalist,” The Saratogian, March 1

Dawn B. Lerman, Ph.D.,

director of the Center for Positive Marketing, marketing area chair, and professor of marketing, BUS,

“Study: Google, Facebook, Walmart Fill Consumer Needs,” Tech Investor News, February 12

Paul Levinson, Ph.D.,

professor of communication and media studies, A&S,

“Will Oscar Host Seth MacFarlane Be Asked Back? Probably Not,” Yahoo! News via Christian Science Monitor, February 26

Hector Lindo-Fuentes, Ph.D.,

professor of history and director of Latin American and Latino Studies, A&S,

“Escaping Gang Violence, Growing Number of Teens Cross Border,” WNYC, December 28

Timothy Malefyt, Ph.D.,

visiting associate professor of marketing, BUS,

“On TV, an Everyday Muslim as Everyday American,” The New York Times, February 8

Elizabeth Maresca,

clinical associate professor of law, LAW,

“Poll: 87 Percent Say Never OK to Cheat on Taxes,” KWQC, February 26

Carlos McCray, Ed.D.,

associate professor of education leadership, GRE,

“Cops Nab 5-Year-Old for Wearing Wrong Color Shoes to School,” Take Part, January 18

Micki McGee, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of sociology, A&S,

“Do Self-Help Books Work?,” Chicago Sun Times, February 21

Mark Naison, Ph.D.,

professor of African and African American Studies and history, and principal investigator of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP), A&S,

“Professor: Why Teach For America Can’t Recruit in my Classroom,” Washington Post, February 18

Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D.,

associate professor of political science, A&S,

“Analysis: Obama to Republicans – Can We Just Move On?,” WHTC 1450, February 13

Kimani Paul-Emile,

associate professor of law, LAW,

“Some Patients Won’t See Nurses of Different Race,” Cleveland Plain Dealer via AP, February 22

Michael Peppard, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of theology, A&S,

“Big Man on Campus isn’t on Campus,” Commonweal, February 20

Francis Petit, Ed.D.,

associate dean and director of Executive Programs, BUS,

“Marissa Mayer Takes Flak for Gathering Her Troops,” E-Commerce Times, March 1

Rose Perez, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of social work, GSS,

“Education Segment,” Mundo Fox, January 21

Wullianallur “R.P.” Raghupathi, Ph.D.,

professor of information systems, BUS,

“¿Qué Tiene Silicon Valley para Producir ‘Frutos’ Como Steve Jobs?,” CNN, February 24

Joel Reidenberg, Ph.D.,

Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and professor of law and founding academic director of the Center on Law and Information Policy, LAW,

“Google App Store Policy Raises Privacy Concerns,” Reuters, February 14

Erick Rengifo-Minaya, Ph.D.,

associate professor of economics, BUS,

“Noticias MundoFOX 10PM Parte II,” Mundo Fox Noticias, February 8

Patrick J. Ryan, S.J.,

The Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, A&S,

“Pope Resignation,” WNBC, Sunday “Today in NY,” March 13

Susan Scafidi,

professor of law, LAW,

“Diamonds: How $60B Industry Thrives on Symbolism,” CBS This Morning, February 21

Christine Janssen-Selvadurai, Ph.D.,director of the entrepreneurship program at the Gabelli School of Business and co-director of both Fordham’s Center for Entrepreneurship and the Fordham Foundry, BUS,

“NYC Embraces Silicon Valley’s Appetite for Risk,” Crain’s New York Business, February 6

Ellen Silber, Ph.D.,

director of Mentoring Latinas, GSS,

“Mentoring Program Serves Young Latinas Aiming Higher in New York City,” Fox News Latino, February 25

Janet Sternberg, Ph.D.,assistant professor of communication and media studies, A&S,

“What are You Supposed to Do When You Have, Like, 106,926 Unread Emails?,” Huffington Post, February 25

Maureen A. Tilley, Ph.D.,professor of theology, A&S,

“Pope Resignation: Interview with Maureen Tilley of Fordham University,” WPIX, February 17

Terrence W. Tilley, Ph.D.,

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Professor of Catholic Theology and chair of the department, A&S,

“As Conclave to Select New Pope Begins, English-Speaking Cardinals Lead Charge to Reform Vatican,” Daily News, March 4

Peter Vaughan, Ph.D.,dean of the Graduate School of Social Service, GSS,

“Ceremony Held for NASW Foundation Award Recipients,” Social Work Blog, February 28

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