The Dawn of Neuroscience
in America's Courtrooms
The Brain Defense combines true crime, brain science and courtroom drama. It raises profound questions about free will, criminal responsibility and our justice system.
“Excellent. . . . Davis’s book is sensitive to the moral and philosophical questions that hang over the legal battles he explores.”
—The Wall Street Journal
"A riveting journey down a new corridor in the American courthouse. An important book."
— Michael Connelly
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’s book is sensitive to the moral and philosophical questions that hang over the legal battles he explores.
The Wall Street Journal
Bio
Kevin Davis is an award-winning journalist, author and magazine writer based in Chicago. A former crime reporter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, his writing has appeared in USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago magazine, Utne Reader, In These Times, ABA Journal, Reader’s Digest, USA Weekend, Encyclopaedia Britannica and many other publications.
He is the author of three non-fiction books on the criminal justice system, The Wrong Man, Defending the Damned and The Brain Defense. Davis has also authored eight nonfiction children’s books.
Davis teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Studies, and has taught a writing class for detainees at the Cook County Jail.
Davis was a staff reporter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel for ten years. He left the paper after writing his first true crime book to pursue a career as a freelance journalist, and later as a magazine editor for the ABA Journal. He writes frequently on science, crime, neuroscience, the courtroom and the brain. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Martha Sanders, and son, Jackson, "Sonny" Davis.
