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A recurring legal battle across American courts is whether brain scan evidence meets the Daubert standard, the legal test for whether scientific evidence is reliable enough to be admitted. In United States v. Semrau (2012), the Sixth Circuit excluded fMRI lie detection evidence partly because the technology had a false positive rate of 60 to 70 percent for truthful individuals. Courts continue to reach different conclusions case by case. No uniform federal rule exists.

Following the Supreme Court's ruling in Miller v. Alabama (2012), which banned mandatory life without parole sentences for juvenile offenders, courts across the country have been actively resentencing individuals who were convicted as minors. In several of these cases, defense attorneys are introducing neuroscience evidence about adolescent brain development to argue for reduced sentences. An emerging legal question is whether brain development science should extend beyond juveniles to young adults in their early 20s, based on research showing the brain continues developing until the mid-20s.

Eric Loomis was sentenced to six years in prison after a judge cited his COMPAS risk score, a number generated by a proprietary algorithm, as one factor in the sentencing decision. Loomis challenged the sentence, arguing that using a secret algorithm he could not examine or challenge violated his due process rights. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the sentence. The question of whether algorithmic sentencing violates constitutional rights has never been resolved at the federal level. These tools remain in use in courtrooms across the United States today.

Philip Chism was 14 years old when he killed his math teacher, Colleen Ritzer, in 2013. At trial, the defense argued that Chism lacked criminal responsibility due to a severe psychotic disorder. To support this, his legal team introduced structural MRI brain scans showing volumetric abnormalities consistent with schizophrenia. The trial judge excluded the scan evidence, ruling it had limited probative value and potential for unfair prejudice. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the conviction in 2025, agreeing that the exclusion was within the judge's discretion.