Update on Indian BEOS case: Accused released on bail

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We wrote in December about the murder trial in India that relied heavily on Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature (BEOS) test to prove that Aditi Sharma had “experiential knowledge” of the poisoning of her former fiance, Udit Bharati.  Aditi and her husband, Pravin Khandelwal, were sentenced to life in prison. The original opinion, which we believe contains many serious flaws, is available at the original post.

We recently learned, courtesy of some research by Rajat Rana (thanks to Vinita Kailasanath!), that Aditi and Pravin have been granted bail by the Bombay High Court (documents: Aditi’s bail order and Pravin’s bail order).  Pravin’s sentence was suspended on the grounds that there was no real evidence to tie him to the case as a conspirator. Aditi was released based on the fact that the evidence of her possessing the arsenic-laced prasad was not compelling, and indeed “the possibility of plantation cannot not be ruled out” (sic). The BEOS evidence is not mentioned in either brief.

Watch this space for further news and a complete analysis.

– Emily Murphy

No Lie MRI being offered as evidence in court

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It has come to our attention that No Lie MRI has produced a report that is presently being offered as evidence in a court in Southern California.  A hearing about the admissibility of this evidence is imminent.

The case is a child protection hearing being conducted in the juvenile court.  In brief, and because the details of the case are sealed and of a sensitive nature, the issue is whether a minor has suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a custodial parent and should remain removed from the home.  The parent has contracted No Lie MRI and apparently undergone a brain scan.  The No Lie MRI-produced report reads in part as follows:

The defense plans to claim the fMRI-based lie detection (or “truth verification”) technology is accurate and generally accepted within the relevant scientific community in part by narrowly defining the relevant community as only those who research and develop fMRI-based lie detection.  [Note: California follows its own version of the Frye test of admissibility, not the current federal test under Daubert.]

Limiting the “relevant community” to only those who research and develop fMRI based lie detection is without merit, if only because such a definition precludes effective or sufficient peer-review.  Indeed, it is arguable such a narrowly-defined community has a strong incentive to exaggerate its claims of accuracy and overlook unanswered questions for financial gain if such techniques are “legally admissible.”

The few practitioners who research and develop fMRI-based deception detection are not the only qualified people to comment on the accuracy and validity of the technique.  Statisticians familiar with Bayesian analysis, cognitive neuroscientists familiar with technical and analytical constraints, and researchers working to elucidate the neural basis of memory, decision-making, and social behavior should all make up the “relevant scientific community” for such a complex and as-yet poorly characterized technology.   Further, I suspect the community of peer-reviewers that have reviewed the articles being proffered in support of the evidence of fMRI testing on deception is probably a useful proxy for the legally relevant scientific community, and extends well beyond the handful of researchers working directly on fMRI-based deception detection.

I will post again soon with more details and criticisms about the claims in the statement produced by No Lie MRI – mainly, that their external validation task was inconclusive in the individual, yet the testing proceeded with the case-related probe questions and found to be determinative that the parent was not lying about denying sexual abuse of the child.  Further, that the repetition of three critical questions (as above) four times each seems incredibly unlikely to produce sufficient power to detect a robust neural response that could be accurately classified as deceptive/non-deceptive.

Please add your own views and suggestions, and check back for updates.

– Emily Murphy