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ABSTRACT: Researchers have found that a low variant of the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene, coupled with childhood abuse or mistreatment, creates a propensity for psychopathic tendencies including violence and aggression. More recently, defense attorneys have called for this genetic evidence to be presented in criminal trials and during sentencing to prove defendants suffer from this genetic and environmental combination. The combination can explain psychopathy, which makes it difficult for individuals to control their aggressive tendencies. Some courts have allowed the presentation of genetic evidence and there is some indication it can be used as a mitigating factor in more criminal trials as it gains acceptance in the legal and scientific communities. If this defense is the wave of the future, a better system must be created for sentencing and rehabilitating those who are genetically predisposed to act violently. Many fear the use of genetic evidence as a mitigating factor will cause further harm to society. Dangerous, violent individuals could be punished less severely and let free to harm again. Rehabilitating MAOA-low offenders would eliminate this fear and could significantly decrease violent crime, as it is estimated that MAOA-low males commit roughly forty percent of violent crimes in the United States.
CITATION: Ashley Wiberg, Comment, Rehabilitation of MAOA Deficient Criminals Could Lead to a Decrease in Violent Crime, 55 Jurimetrics J. 509-526 (2015).
In 2006, Davis Bradley Waldroup, Jr. brutally murdered Leslie Bradshaw and attempted to rape and murder his wife, Penny Waldroup, while his children were in the next room.1 Mr. Waldroup was indicted "for two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, one count of first degree murder, and one count of attempted first degree murder."2 Mr. Waldroup shot Ms. Bradshaw eight times and "sliced her head open" with a machete.3 After hearing evidence that Mr. Waldroup had a low-activity variant of the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene, also known as the "warrior gene," and that he suffered from childhood abuse, the jury convicted Mr. Waldroup of the lesser offenses: vol- untary manslaughter, and attempted second-degree murder.4 Genetic evidence helped mitigate the murder of Ms. Bradshaw from a death sentence to a sixyear prison sentence.5
While still fairly new, genetic evidence is being presented more frequently as it gains popularity and acceptance in...