Can We Be Natural Born Killers

Can our genes make us natural born criminals or at worst murderers?   It is a debate that the geneticists and the legal community have been waging for years.   It is the fundamental question that Dr. Jonathan H. Pincus discusses in his book "Base Instincts: What Makes Killers Kill?"   "Dr. Pincus who is a professor of medicine and neurology at Georgetown University School of Medicine drew on his own experiences as a medical student at Bellevue Hospital.   The clinical material in Base Instincts is also derived partly from the research that Dr. Pincus and his colleague Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis, a psychiatrist, conducted and published from 1970 through today.   Dr. Pincus estimates that through the course of his studies he evaluated approximately 150 murderers." (Bernet 2)
"One such murderer is a man named Donovan, sent to death row for brutally and violently murdering a used car salesman to steal a small sum of money.   Donovan stabbed the man so violently that he was virtually decapitated.   Donovan was summarily arrested, confessed to the crime and was jailed.   While awaiting trial, Donovan used a phone clearly marked ‘monitored' trying to arrange the murder of a witness to his crime.   Donovan was found guilty of the murder, thus receiving the death sentence.   During his appeals process, new lawyers asked Dr. Pincus to evaluate Donovan." (Bernet 2)
"Dr. Pincus found that Donovan, like so many others in his book, illustrated the triad of neurological and psychiatric factors that lead to criminal behavior: serious brain damage, severe childhood maltreatment and paranoia.   Donovan suffered brain damage at birth, resulting in blindness in one eye.   Subsequently later in life he was involved in a car crash which left him in a coma, caused further brain damage and the paralysis of the left side of his face.   Donovan's father frequently beat him and his mother sexually abused him for ten years.   Additionally due to Donovan's paranoid thinking he frequently initiated fights....