According to an article in Sweden's premiere tabloid rag (which is in Swedish, of course), a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research, Wolf Singer, contends that a criminal can not be held responsible for the crimes he committed, as human beings do not possess free will, at least not in the sense it's commonly understood.
All the choices we make are the result of a pre-determined biological chain of events, with the choice being made before we're even aware of it. In a sense we are programmed by our upbringing and other environmental factors to react in a predictable manner to choices we are to make. A criminal is a human being with a faulty programming.
I'm neither a neurobiologist nor a philosopher. I am a blogger, though, which is all the credentials one needs in this day and age.
What little I know of how the brain functions, Singer's proposition of us being programmed to act a certain way makes sense.
And, as an aside, clearly there's something not quite right in the head of a murderer.
But "criminals can't helpt it" as an approach to lawmaking doesn't seem particularly smart at all. Not guilty of shoplifting due to insanity? Although, it might make for a viable defense, should the MPAA come a knockin'...
