The scientific basis for backing the judgment was wide, as it was derived from
studies focusing on specific populations of patients, who all had a diagnosis of schizophrenia (for example, [7–16]), not from population studies. In the same year, a Tennessee court, accepting a Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA) gene variant per environment interaction (MAOA-L childhood abuse), reduced the charge of a defendant from first degree murder to voluntary manslaughter [17]. In fact, the jury felt not like giving a death penalty after a forensic psychiatrist produced evidence that the defendant had a ‘‘warrior gene’’ conferring him vulnerability in some conditions, and condemned the defendant to a 32-year imprisonment [18]. The defendant appealed twice to further reduce his penalty, but the judge rejected most of his arguments [19,20], sticking to the facts and not taking into account further genetic considerations.