单位犯罪刑事责任中行为归责与责任归责理论之整合

现有单位刑事责任理论均未有效地解决单位与单位自然人之间的关系,以及各自的刑事责任原理。单位刑事责任理论应包括:一是单位自然人的行为可以归责于单位本身,也即行为归责,是一种因果关系意义上的客观归属,具有法定性、利益性、身份或业务择一性、代理性等特征;二是单位犯罪行为可以归责于单位,是一种责任承担意义上的主观责任归属,强调单位行为人的主观可归责性,具有整体性、间接性、双重性和特定程序性等特征,包括故意和过失两种罪过;同时,单位人在行为归责的前提下,也要对自己的行为承担责任,也是一种主观责任归属。从行为归属到责任归责,单位犯罪刑事责任理论借此得以重构。     

致特殊体质被害人死亡案件中的刑事归责问题

对于行为人以较轻的殴打行为造成特殊体质被害人死亡的案件,一般认为行为人的殴打行为与被害人的死亡结果之间存在因果关系,但死亡结果能否归责于行为人则存在争议。如果将结果归因与结果归责相区分,将事实判断与规范归责层序化,笼罩在因果关系理论上的迷雾将散去,归责问题也将迎刃而解。客观归责理论不仅为我们判断归责提供了规则体系,更为重要的是提供了一种思维方法。这种方法论上的启迪,也许能够推进我国刑法因果关系理论向前迈进并逐渐融入追求刑法精确化、精细化、精致化的潮流中。     

事实判断与规范归责:因果关系与客观归责的功能界分

因果关系与客观归责是客观构成要件中两个各自独立的构成要素。客观归责理论将因果关系问题与归责问题加以分离,在确定了某一行为是造成某一结果的原因后,还要再以规范的观点来检验,是否如此的结果要归责于这一行为。根据条件说来判断因果关系,在归责的问题上,注重于结果在客观上可否归责于行为,如果行为制造了法所不容许的危险而且实现了构成要件该当的结果,那么行为就具有了归责可能性。客观归责明确区分了归因与归责,归因问题属于事实范畴,根据因果关系理论判断;归责问题属于评价范畴,依据客观归责理论处理。     

从归因到归责:客观归责理论研究

客观归责理论是德国刑法学在因果关系理论基础上发展起来的学说,旨在解决客观上的可归责性问题。归因与归责的区别在于:归因是一个事实问题,通过因果关系理论解决;归责是一个评价问题,通过客观归责理论解决。客观归责理论所确立的有关规则,对犯罪构成的客观要素进行实质审查,从而使犯罪构成论更加合理化。我国有必要对客观归责理论加以借鉴。     

试论刑法上的因果关系——从吕世海故意伤害一案说起

对刑法因果关系中介入因素的判断,及其刑事责任的确定等问题,在目前的刑法理论与司法实践中尚存争议。本文认为介入因素是否中断刑法因果关系,可参照＂三个条件说＂的观点,综合考虑各案的具体情形,而因果关系仅是行为人承担刑事责任的客观基础,其必然性与偶然性的区分,不是界定行为人承担刑事责任的标准。本文将从一个具体案例入手,对上述问题发表相关见解。     

客观归责理论:质疑与反思

我国刑法学界近年对引进德国刑法理论中的客观归责理论呼声很高,然而,作为一种外来理论,客观归责理论自身有诸多值得质疑之处。客观归责理论实际是因果关系理论而非其自身定位的构成要件理论;它早已超越对归责问题的探讨,而渐至成为与可罚性概念相当的犯罪成立理论;它在"客观归责"的同时其实也一直在进行着"主观归责";它以模糊三阶层犯罪论体系为代价进行归责判断,从而极大地削弱了阶层犯罪论体系所具有的人权保障机能;它不是一个自洽的理论,而是统合了各种不同内容的混合体。解决我国刑法因果关系问题不必引进客观归责理论,相当因果关系说可作为予以借鉴的学说。     

反思客观归责

客观归责理论对于犯罪论体系的构建意义重大。从它与因果关系的关系来讲,是归因判断与归责判断的结合,在这个基础上,可以重新定位条件理论的内涵。客观归责在三阶层犯罪论体系中理应属于构成要件该当性的讨论范围,并且是实质的客观构成要件。客观归责理论虽然对客观构成要件与主观构成要件的关系造成冲击,但并未改变主观构成要件对客观构成要件的方向指引以及客观构成要件作为主观构成要件的事实基础这样一个基本的关系定位。另外,客观归责理论的内部构造及检视规则仍然需要再检讨,以裨于客观归责理论的合理化。讨论客观归责理论最大的价值应当是给犯罪论体系的选择与引荐提供一个理论依据。     

也谈正确认识和认定刑法上的因果关系

认识刑法中的因果关系,应当先从行为的客观性质着手确定行为与结果有无因果关系,然后再结合行为人的主观罪过确定其行为是否属危害行为,进而确定其刑事责任的轻重;刑法中的因果关系是危害行为与危害结果之间的一种内在的、本质的联系,危害行为（即原因）的产生带有偶然性,刑法上因果关系本身是必然性和偶然性的辩证统一;应当正确区分因果关系中的原因与条件;不能把刑法上的因果关系与构成犯罪和承担刑事责任等同起来。     

论缓和的结果归属

结果归属可以分为三种类型:通常的结果归属(客观归责)、严格的结果归属与缓和的结果归属。将他人自杀死亡的结果归属于行为人的引起行为,就是典型的缓和的结果归属。缓和的结果归属具有两个特点:一是结果归属的条件缓和,即尽管不符合通常的结果归属条件,但仍然将结果归属于行为人的行为;二是结果归属后的刑事责任追究比较缓和,即虽然将自杀死亡结果归属于行为人的引起行为,但并非令行为人承担故意杀人罪、过失致人死亡罪的刑事责任,只是使行为人承担相对较轻犯罪的刑事责任或者作为从重处罚的情节。缓和的结果归属具有中国特色,在当下有其存在的原因与理由,不能以德国的客观归责理论为标准否定中国的缓和的结果归属现象。相反,一部分缓和的结果归属现象可以得到维持,与此同时,也要从构成要件的行为、因果关系、主观责任方面对缓和的结果归属现象进行适当限制,并禁止基于缓和的结果归属对行为人适用加重的法定刑。     

客观归责理论的方法论意义兼与刘艳红教授商榷

客观归责理论和相当因果关系说都是实质的归责理论,它们都要解决把结果视作谁的"作品"的问题。如果仅仅考虑个案处理,即便不采用客观归责理论,单纯运用条件说和相当因果关系说,疑难案件也能够得到处理。但是,相当因果关系说在方法论上有诸多缺陷,而客观归责理论在方法论上的优势非常明显:用多重规则确保检验时没有遗漏;建立正面判断和反向检验交互进行的检验标准;展示一般预防的刑罚效果;凸显评价的层次性、充分性;确保刑法判断的客观化。我国刑法学者否认客观归责理论,主张在因果关系判断时采用相当因果关系理论,再通过故意、过失限定归责范围的观点,貌似有理,但在方法论上存在根本的错误。如果在进行客观归责判断时,根据一定的检验标准,根本就不需要将某个后果这一"杰作"算到行为人头上,也就没有追问其有无罪责的必要性、可能性。客观归责理论主张对故意犯、过失犯的认定,可以将原本就应该放在构成要件符合性阶段考虑,但过去一直被错误地置于责任中分析的要素提早到客观归责来思考,使之实现犯罪判断要素的正确"归位"。因此,客观归责理论只是强调客观判断必须优先进行,不会模糊三阶层理论。如果充分认识到客观归责理论在方法论上的独特意义,同时,为了确保司法上不出错,肯定客观归责理论,并将相当因果关系说的内容融入客观归责中,就是我国刑法理论未来需要认真对待的问题。     

Bhartṛhari and Maṇḍana on Avidyā

The concept of avidyā is one of the central categories in the Advaita of Śaṇkara and Maṇḍana. Shifting the focus from māyā, interpreted either as illusion or as the divine power, this concept brings ignorance to the forefront in describing duality and bondage. Although all Advaitins accept avidyā as a category, its scope and nature is interpreted in multiple ways. Key elements in Maṇḍana’s philosophy include the plurality of avidyā, individual selves as its substrate and the Brahman as its field (viṣaya), and the distinction in avidyā between non-apprehension and misapprehension. A closer investigation shows that Maṇḍana is directly influenced by Bhartṛhari’s linguistic non-dualism in developing the concept of avidyā. This study also compares other key constituents such as vivartta and pariṇāma that are relevant to the analysis of avidyā. As the concept of counter-image (pratibimba) emerges as a distinct stream of Advaita subsequent to Maṇḍana, this study also compares the application of pratibimba in the writings of Bhartṛhari and Maṇḍana.     

Immigration,intermarriage and the changing face of Europe in the post war period

In this article we compare the propensity to intermarry of various migrant groups and their children who settled in Germany, France, England, Belgium and the Netherlands in the post-war period, using a wide range of available statistical data. We try to explain different intermarriage patterns within the framework of Alba and Nee's assimilation theory and pay special attention to the role of religion, colour and colonial background. We therefore compare colonial with non colonial migrants and within these categories between groups with ‘European’ (Christian) and non-European (Islam, Hinduism) religions. First of all, religion appears to be an important variable. Migrants whose faith has no tradition in Western Europe intermarry at a much lower rate than those whose religious backgrounds correspond with those that are common in the country of settlement. The rate of ethnic endogamous marriages in Western Europe are highest in Hindu and Muslim communities, often regardless if they came as guest workers or colonial migrants. Whereas differences in religion diminish the propensity to intermarry, colour or ‘racial’ differences on the other hand seem to be less important. This is largely explained by the pre-migration socialisation. Furthermore, the paper argues that the attention to institutions, as rightly advocated by Richard Alba and Victor Nee, needs a more refined and layered elaboration. Institutions, often as barriers to intermarriage, do not only emanate from the receiving society, but also—be it less formalized—within migrant communities. Especially religions and family systems, but also organized nationalist feelings, can have a profound influence on how migrants think about endogamy. Finally, strong pressures to assimilate, often through institutionalized forms of discrimination and stigmatization, not only produce isolation and frustrate assimilation (with resulting low intermarriage rates), but can also stimulate assimilation by 'passing' mechanisms. These factors, together with a more comparative perspective, are not completely ignored in the new assimilation theory, but—as this study of Western European intermarriage patterns stresses—deserve to be included more systematically in historical and social scientist analyses.     

Unraveling the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Kāvyaprakāśa</Emphasis>: Jayadeva Pīyūṣavarṣa’s idiosyncratic sequence of topics in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Candrāloka</Emphasis>

In his twelfth century alaṃkāraśāstra, the Candrāloka, Jayadeva Pīyūṣavarṣa reverses the sequence of topics found in Mammaṭa’s Kāvyapr-akāśa, an earlier and immensely popular work. With such a structural revisionism, Jayadeva asserts the autonomy of his own work and puts forth an ambitious critique of earlier approaches to literary analysis. Jayadeva investigates the technical and aesthetic components of poetry in the first part of the Candrāloka, prior to his formal semantic investigations in the latter half of the text, thus suggesting that aesthetic evaluations of poetry beneficially inform scientific investigations of language. Jayadeva’s organization of his chapters on the semantic operations, moreover, intimates that the study of suggestive and metaphoric functions of language clarifies our understanding of denotation, which is conventionally understood to be the primary and direct path of verbal designation.     

Turning a Madhyamaka Trick: Reply to Huntington

Huntington (2007); argues that recent commentators (Robinson, 1957; Hayes, 1994; Tillemans, 1999; Garfield and Priest, 2002) err in attributing to Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti a commitment to rationality and to the use of argument, and that these commentators do violence to the Madhyamaka project by using rational reconstruction in their interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s and Candrakīrti’s texts. Huntington argues instead that mādhyamikas reject reasoning, distrust logic and do not offer arguments. He also argues that interpreters ought to recuse themselves from argument in order to be faithful to these texts. I demonstrate that he is wrong in all respects: Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti deploy arguments, take themselves to do so, and even if they did not, we would be wise to do so in commenting on their texts.     

Illumination,Imagination, Creativity: Rājaśekhara,Kuntaka, and Jagannātha on <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pratibhā</Emphasis>

Sanskrit poeticians make the visionary faculty of pratibhā a necessary part of the professional poet’s make-up. The term has a pre-history in Bhartṛhari’s linguistic metaphysics, where it is used to explain the unitary perception of meaning. This essay examines the relation between pratibhā and possible theories of the imagination, with a focus on three unusual theoreticians—Rājaśekhara, Kuntaka, and Jagannātha Paṇḍita. Rājaśekhara offers an analysis of pratibhā that is heavily interactive, requiring the discerning presence of the bhāvaka listener or critic; he also positions pratibhā in relation to Bildung (vyutpatti) and practice. For Kuntaka, pratibhā, never an ex nihilo creation by a poet, serves as the basis for the peculiar forms of intensified insight and experience that constitute poetry; these may also involve the creative scrambling and re-articulation of the object in terms of its systemic composition. At times, Kuntaka’s pratibhā comes close to a strong notion of imaginative process. But the full-fledged thematization of the imagination, and of pratibhā as its support and mechanism, is best seen in the seventeenth-century debates preserved for us by Jagannātha. A link is suggested between the discourse of poetic imagination in Jagannātha and similar themes that turn up in Indo-Persian poets such as Bedil.     

Preventing Homelessness for System‐Involved Youth

Too many youth and young adults find themselves on the streets, couch‐surfing with friends, in emergency shelters or worse, after exiting the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. In some circumstances, youth have had court hearings until their exit from the legal system, but those hearings have not focused on long‐range plans of youth and emergencies youth may encounter. In other circumstances, there has been little or no planning prior to discharge, especially for young people who leave the juvenile justice system. Courts can and should prevent, alleviate or end youth homelessness for youth who appear before them through strategies that are enumerated in the recently‐passed NCJFCJ resolution. This article expounds on three of these strategies – coordinating transition and re‐entry plans, insisting on effective legal representation of youth, and utilizing sound judicial leadership. It also describes the concurrent efforts of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice and the American Bar Association's Homeless Youth Legal Network to remove legal barriers and improve outcomes for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness.     

Best practices for structuring a family court parenting plan evaluation under the 2022 AFCC Guidelines

Evaluation appointment orders provide enforceable scaffolding for conduct of family court parenting plan evaluations, and use of the evaluator's reports, feedback, file, and testimony. Unlike a contract, a stipulated or adjudicated appointment order is directly enforceable by the family court. It unambiguously positions the evaluator as the family court's appointee – answerable directly to the court and, in some jurisdictions, protected by quasi-judicial immunity from damages claims. A well-crafted appointment order governs the roles and expectations of the court, the evaluator, the parties, the lawyers, and the collateral witnesses. An appointment order mandates the legal duties, rights, powers, and responsibilities of the professionals, the parties, and the collateral witnesses. At minimum, an appointment order articulates the legal basis for the appointment, the purpose and scope of the evaluation, compensation of evaluator, and the duty of the parties to participate in the process. A written evaluation protocol or procedures statement discloses in advance the methods of investigation and assessment that the evaluator intends to use. Together, the appointment order and written protocol help the evaluator, lawyers, parents, and judge manage the complexity of the evaluation process.     

The Supreme Array Scripture: A New Interpretation of the Title “Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra”

This article argues for a new interpretation of the Sanskrit compound gaṇḍa-vyūha as it is used in the common title of the Mahāyāna text the Gaṇḍavyūha-Sūtra.The author begins by providing a brief history of the sūtra’s appellations in Chinese and Tibetan sources. Next, the meanings of gaṇḍa (the problematic member of the compound) are explored. The author proposes that contemporary scholars have overlooked a meaning of gaṇḍa occurring in some compounds, wherein gaṇḍa can mean simply “great,” “big” or “massive.” This general sense is particularly common in the compound gaṇda-śaila (a “massive rock” or “boulder”) and is found in such texts as the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the Harivaṃśa and the Harṣacarita. Following the discussion of Gaṇḍa, the author examines the term vyūha (“array”) as it is used in the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra. The article concludes with the suggestion that a more appropriate translation of the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra would be “The Supreme array Scripture.”     

The Mūlāvidyā Controversy Among Advaita Vedāntins: was Śaṅkara Himself Responsible?

The concept of avidyā or ignorance is central to the Advaita Vedāntic position of Śȧnkara. The post-Śaṅkara Advaitins wrote sub-commentaries on the original texts of Śaṅkara with the intention of strengthening his views. Over the passage of time the views of these sub-commentators of Śaṅkara came to be regarded as representing the doctrine of Advaita particularly with regard to the concept of avidyā. Swami Satchidanandendra Saraswati, a scholar-monk of Holenarsipur, challenged the accepted tradition through the publication of his work Mūlāvidyānirāsaḥ, particularly with regard to the avidyādoctrine. It was his contention that the post-Śaṅkara commentators brought their own innovations particularly on the nature of avidyā. This was the idea of mūlāvidyā or ‘root ignorance’, a positive entity which is the material cause of the phenomenal world. Saraswati argues that such an idea of mūlāvidyā is not to be found in the bhāṣyas (commentaries) of Śaṅkara and is foisted upon Śaṅkara. This paper attempts to show that although Śaṅkara may not have explicitly favoured such a view of mūlāvidyā, his lack of clarity on the nature of avidyā left enough scope for the post-Śaṅkara commentators to take such a position on avidyā.     

Evaluation of six presumptive tests for blood, their specificity, sensitivity, and effect on high molecular-weight DNA

Luminol, leuchomalachite green, phenolphthalein, Hemastix, Hemident, and Bluestar are all used as presumptive tests for blood. In this study, the tests were subjected to dilute blood (from 1:10,000 to 1:10,000,000), many common household substance, and chemicals. Samples were tested for DNA to determine whether the presumptive tests damaged or destroyed DNA. The DNA loci tested were D2S1338 and D19S433. Leuchomalachite green had a sensitivity of 1:10,000, while the remaining tests were able to detect blood to a dilution of 1:100,000. Substances tested include saliva, semen, potato, tomato, tomato sauce, tomato sauce with meat, red onion, red kidney bean, horseradish, 0.1 M ascorbic acid, 5% bleach, 10% cupric sulfate, 10% ferric sulfate, and 10% nickel chloride. Of all the substances tested, not one of the household items reacted with every test; however, the chemicals did. DNA was recovered and amplified from luminol, phenolphthalein, Hemastix, and Bluestar, but not from leuchomalachite green or Hemident.