Should He Be Held Responsible For His Actions?

[NOPROBLEM]

There was a man who suffered from seizures his whole life. A brain scan revealed he had a benign (non-life threatening) brain tumor. He opted to have it removed. He stayed awake for the procedure so they could isolate brain tissue that would be least catastrophic to remove. When the procedure was done, he had about a golf ball sized tumor chunk of brain missing. He went home to his wife and they continued to live their lives seizure free. She noticed that his sexual needs has dramatically increased but didn't think much of it. It turned out that he was buying and downloading copious amounts of child pornography on the internet. The FBI raided his home and arrested him for it. Prior to the brain surgery, he had no interest in pornography, including child porn. After his arrest, doctors placed him on medication which eliminated his libido and compulsion to download any porn, let alone child porn and is completely disgusted by his actions.

Should he be held accountable for his actions? Should he serve time in prison for helping fund the child porn industry? Are they really "his actions" or are they the actions of himself, modified?

You can listen to the story of the man here:
http://www.radiolab.org/story/317421-blame/

 

[SKNeoDio]

This is quite interesting...

The law is clear on this; however, if it could be scientifically proved that the lack of the referred brain tissue directly lead into this kind of behavior, as a cause-consequence, then he should be evaluated by a forensic psychologist or psychiatrist, in order to, afterwards, be considered an incapacitated individual in the eyes of the Law; thus, the motive and guilt would not fall on him in such a harsh way that would make him serve jail time in a regular prison.

Don't get me wrong though, as everyone already knows around here, I've personally dealt with these kind of "animals" for nearly 2 years; so, even if he was deemed an incapacitated individual, as in, not being eligible to have common law applied against him - he is still to be considered a danger to society, and should be hospitalized, or sent to a prison hospital facility; not and never a regular prison. If he it truly sick, as in, mentally ill, then he doesn't belong in a regular prison amongst common rapists.
(Please note that unlike the Catholic religion, I do not consider pedophiles to be 'sick' individuals, nor homosexuals for what it's worth, I believe that they have their own desires, they have their own urges, it's not a sickness, it's a way of life; so, by 'sick', I really mean ILL, and not the "Catholic sick".)

As a direct answer to your questions, yes, he should be held accountable for his actions if the surgery was unrelated; and, no, if the surgery caused such behavior, then he should be hospitalized in order to receive treatment.
Regardless if he is, or was, deemed incapacitated or not, he shouldn't serve time in a regular prison IF it was proved beyond doubt that the removal of that specific brain tissue directly turned him into a pedophile, or, that it made him lose control over his sexuality and actions.
As for the subject who committed such crimes, given the fact that he never had any interest in these sort of things before his surgery, I'm inclined to believe that it was him, BUT modified due to the surgery.

However, a very extensive medical evaluation would be needed to prove this.

I am not excluding medical negligence by the way, since nowadays, it's already known what most parts of the brain are directly related to, or, which types of behavior they affect/control; so, if the surgeons/doctors in question knew that they were removing brain tissue that would alter or affect his behavior in such a disgusting and gruesome manner, then he could have a case against them; because they should have warned him, and also, they should have kept him under close surveillance.