Evaluation of postmortem biochemical markers: Completeness of data and assessment of implication in the field

Throughout the years an increase has been observed in research output on biochemical markers for determining the postmortem interval (PMI). However, to date, a complete overview is missing on the results of postmortem biochemical markers (PBM's) for PMI estimation. In this paper, literature was reviewed in order to identify the knowledge lacunae of PBM research from a practical point of view. A three-step approach was undertaken in order to achieve the set goal. Literature was collected, the PBM's were evaluated for completeness by means of a scorings index based on set criteria, and PBM's were subsequently evaluated in light of the Daubert & Frye criteria for scientific evidence in court. Seven PBM's were found to be well investigated, from which potassium had the highest completion score. However, none of these PBM's could be qualified as suitable for court evidence. Further, this study revealed that the majority of PBM's (94%) is not well investigated. Consequently, these PBM's did not meet Daubert & Frye criteria. In order to improve the assessment for use of PBM's as evidence in court regarding PMI estimation, PBM's should be investigated more thoroughly and data should be made readily available.     

Contextual information management: An example of independent-checking in the review of laboratory-based bloodstain pattern analysis

This article describes a New Zealand forensic agency's contextual information management protocol for bloodstain pattern evidence examined in the laboratory. In an effort to create a protocol that would have minimal impact on current work-flow, while still effectively removing task-irrelevant contextual information, the protocol was designed following an in-depth consultation with management and forensic staff. The resulting design was for a protocol of independent-checking (i.e. blind peer-review) where the checker's interpretation of the evidence is conducted in the absence of case information and the original examiner's notes or interpretation(s). At the conclusion of a ten-case trial period, there was widespread agreement that the protocol had minimal impact on the number of people required, the cost, or the time to complete an item examination. The agency is now looking to adopt the protocol into standard operating procedures and in some cases the protocol has been extended to cover other laboratory-based examinations (e.g. fabric damage, shoeprint examination, and physical fits). The protocol developed during this trial provides a useful example for agencies seeking to adopt contextual information management into their workflow.     

The ICO and artificial intelligence: The role of fairness in the GDPR framework

The year 2017 has seen many EU and UK legislative initiatives and proposals to consider and address the impact of artificial intelligence on society, covering questions of liability, legal personality and other ethical and legal issues, including in the context of data processing. In March 2017, the Information Commissioner's Office (UK) updated its big data guidance to address the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and to provide (GDPR), which will apply from 25 May 2018.This paper situates the ICO's guidance in the context of wider legal and ethical considerations and provides a critique of the position adopted by the ICO. On the ICO's analysis, the key challenge for artificial intelligence processing personal data is in establishing that such processing is fair. This shift reflects the potential for artificial intelligence to have negative social consequences (whether intended or unintended) that are not otherwise addressed by the GDPR. The question of ‘fairness’ is an important one, to address the imbalance between big data organisations and individual data subjects, with a number of ethical and social impacts that need to be evaluated.     

The Cybercrime Convention Committee's 2017 Guidance Note on Production Orders: Unilateralist transborder access to electronic evidence promoted via soft law

This article provides a critical analysis of the Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention Committee's Guidance Note of Production Orders, published on 1 March 2017. The article looks at the legal controversies surrounding production orders with a cross-border element. It explains the Guidance Note's background and origins, the basic provisions in the Cybercrime Convention allowing the law enforcement authorities to order and obtain certain information and discusses the requirements that follow from the relevant provisions of the Convention. This analysis is complemented by four critical remarks on the way the Guidance Note pushes the boundaries of acceptable treaty interpretation on the necessity of the Guidance Note, its position in regard to extraterritorial enforcement jurisdiction and sovereignty, its reticence towards fundamental rights and its refusal to define or clarify the important notion of “subscriber information”. The article argues that unilateralism is not a solution. Instead of soft law plumbing, what is needed is an agreement between sovereign states checked by their constituencies.     

Police uniforms,attitudes, and citizens

This study focuses on identifying the relationship between the citizen's attitude toward the police and the police uniform and authoritarian attitude. The perceived authority associated with the police uniform has been an essential ingredient of the police role. Consequently, the police uniform influences attitudes and behaviors of the wearers as well as the citizens with whom they interact. The citizen's attitude is negatively affected by the traditional military style police uniform in conjunction with the authoritarian attitude exhibited by police officers in performance of their duties. Consequently, when the uniform and officer's attitude are altered, there will be a corresponding change in the citizen's attitude toward the police. The attitude of the officer, in conjunction with the uniform, exerts considerably more influence on the citizen's attitude than does the uniform, officer's attitude, or any additional factor acting independently.     

The challenges of applying turnover threshold to the sharing economy for control of concentrations between undertakings in China

The existing notification threshold for Chinese control of concentrations between undertakings is a turnover threshold, complemented by a market share threshold. The business model adopted by platform enterprises in the sharing economy, where services are provided free and subsidies are given to the platform's basic users, make it very hard for platform enterprises to produce notable turnover for a long period of time; therefore, the turnover threshold is unlikely to be satisfied in the context of concentrations. On the other hand, it is also not appropriate to apply the traditional methodology of constitutionality analysis and the SSNIP (Small but Significant and Non-Transitory Increase in Price) test to define the relevant market for the sharing economy, which is characterized by a two-sided market and cross-group network externalities. The size-of-transaction threshold reflects the importance of the number of basic users to the market power possessed by platform enterprise and has the same advantages of transparency and certainty. Therefore, legislation can be used to introduce the size-of-transaction threshold to Chinese control of concentrations between undertakings in addition to the traditional turnover threshold.     

Biasing effects of pretrial publicity on judicial decisions

In a four-factor design, the effects on judicial decisions of sample (102 students versus 100 nonstudents), sex of subject, pretrial publicity (damaging and relevant versus irrelevant), and judge's instructions (warning to disregard pretrial publicity versus a neutral statement) were examined. Results indicated that sample and judge's instructions had no effects on verdicts, recommendations for sentencing, or ratings of the strength of the prosecution and defenses' cases. Pretrial publicity, however, exerted a strong influence on verdicts and ratings of the prosecution's case, particularly among females. It is suggested that pretrial publicity may serve to affect evaluations of the evidence presented at the trial.     

Looking for needles in a haystack: Key issues affecting children's rights in the General Data Protection Regulation

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) devotes particular attention to the protection of personal data of children. The rationale is that children are less aware of the risks and the potential consequences of the processing of their personal data on their rights. Yet, the text of the GDPR offers little clarity as to the actual implementation and impact of a number of provisions that may significantly affect children and their rights, leading to legal uncertainty for data controllers, parents and children. This uncertainty relates for instance to the age of consent for processing children's data in relation to information society services, the technical requirements regarding parental consent in that regard, the interpretation of the extent to which profiling of children is allowed and the level of transparency that is required vis-à-vis children. This article aims to identify a number of key issues and questions – both theoretical and practical – that raise concerns from a multi-dimensional children's rights perspective, and to clarify remaining ambiguities in the run-up to the actual application of the GDPR from 25 May 2018 onwards.     

The colonial model,subcultural theory,and intragroup violence

Frantz Fanon's explanation of exceptionally high rates of intragroup violence among natives of European colonies has been virtually neglected by social scientists seeking to understand violence. This study discusses important similarities between Fanon's colonial model and subcultural theory, including Wolfgang and Ferracuti's subculture of violence thesis. More importantly, it is shown that decolonization in the Caribbean island of St. Vincent is accompanied by a decrease in the frequency of intragroup violence as the colonial model suggests.     

Copyright in DVD’s: Is there a right to make “back-up” copies of DVDs in the UK?

In the light of recent litigation this article considers whether back-up copies of DVD’s, in lawful possession, may legitimately be taken under UK law.     

China's stance on the Google/Motorola merger: Implications for competition in intellectual property-intensive sectors

China's merger enforcement agency approved the Google/Motorola merger with conditions. This pattern of approval is not in full accordance with that in other jurisdictions, including the United States and the European Union, which made unconditional approvals. This contradiction attracted ample criticism; some critics believe that China's policy is designed to protect domestic industry. In investigating the Chinese merger agency's decision and the basis for its decision making, this article finds that much of the criticism is groundless and misleading because the critics have failed to incorporate all elements of the global value chain of mobile intelligent terminals into their analyses. The investigation also shows that, although the decision makers are less experienced, their decisions are based on Chinese competition law and market realities. It is important for international firms to be aware of this pattern in merger analysis.     

The impact of China's 2016 Cyber Security Law on foreign technology firms,and on China's big data and Smart City dreams

Chinese officials are increasingly turning to a policy known as Informatisation, connecting industry online, to utilise technology to improve efficiency and tackle economic developmental problems in China. However, various recent laws have made foreign technology firms uneasy about perceptions of Rule of Law in China. Will these new laws, under China's stated policy of “Network Sovereignty” (“网络主权” “wangluo zhuquan”) affect China's ability to attract foreign technology firms, talent and importantly technology transfers? Will they slow China's technology and Smart City drive? This paper focuses on the question of whether international fears of China's new Cyber Security Law are justified. In Parts I and II, the paper analyses why China needs a cyber security regime. In Parts III and IV it examines the law itself.     

Hanging — A review

A study of 201 cases of death due to hanging, 95% being suicidal in nature and 5% being accidental; in addition there was one judicial hanging. The majority of deaths were in persons over 50 years of age, males predominating particularly in the 50 – 60 age group. In contrast to the Registrar General's annual returns for suicide which show a steady decrease over the past 20 years, deaths due to hanging have increased considerably, particularly in the last decade. This trend could be related to the dramatic fall in carbon monoxide poisoning and more circumspect prescribing of barbiturate drugs.     

Reye's syndrome in a child on long-term salicylate medication

A case of Reye's syndrome in a four-year-old child on long-term salicylate medication for rheumatoid arthritis is reported. Severe fatty changes of the liver, lipid vacuolation in the renal proximal tubules, and severe brain oedema were the prominent postmortem findings. Symptoms of a trivial infection and vomiting just before death added to the resemblance of this case to Reye's syndrome.     

Reduced payer's liability for unauthorized payment transactions under the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2)

In 2015, the European legislator enacted the second Payment Services Directive, which, among other things, determines the payer's liability for unauthorized payment transactions. This paper will show that PSD2 has widened its scope and further reduces the payer's liability for unauthorized transactions, for example by making it impossible to hold the payer liable in case no strong customer authentication has been applied, by requiring supporting evidence to prove the payer's fraud or gross negligence and by applying the same rules when unauthorized transactions are initiated through a payment initiation service.     

Police responses to wife beating: Neglect of a crime of violence

Data were collected from women seeking admission to a spouse abuse shelter in a small southern city. The questionnaire which they completed requested demographics and a wide variety of attitudinal data. The paper reports an analysis of the women's perceptions of police responses to their victimization, their feelings towards self, and their willingness to pursue mobilization of the law in their own behalf. It was reported that the police rarely made referrals to helping agencies and that the most common police action was to “talk” to the assaulter/batterer. Victims' feelings toward self were not nearly as negative overall in this sample as is typically assumed of abused women. Some support was found for a series of hypotheses that positive police responses enhance the victims' self-image and encourage them to seek mobilization of the law.     

Online platforms and pricing: Adapting abuse of dominance assessments to the economic reality of free products

Online platforms, which are at the forefront of today's economy, are subject to intensive competition law enforcement. However, the platform business model presents challenges for the application of competition law. Most notably, they appear to offer consumers a great number of their products for free. The explanation for most of these supposedly free products is offered by two-sided market theory: consumers may not be paying, but the ‘other’ side of the market is. This other side of the market often consists of advertisers, which pay the platform for access to the consumers’ information (to target advertisements) and attention (to show the advertisements). As many of these platforms are now potentially dominant, they come within the scope of competition law's abuse of dominance provision, including the doctrines of predatory and excessive pricing. These price-based theories need to adapt to the often price-less platform business model in order to prevent competition authorities from making both type I and type II enforcement errors. At the same time, competition law enforcement needs to consider—and at times give priority to—other branches of law that address abusive behaviour concerning free products. Through the use of case studies, this article therefore suggests ways in which abuse of dominance assessments can take into account the economic reality of free products.     

Decision games applied to police decision making -an exploratory study of information usage-

An analysis of police decision making is presented using the decision board technique developed by Leslie Wilkins. This method assumes that decision making can be measured by observing a subject's response to stimuli presented in the form of pieces of information. A board was created and employed with fifty municipal police officers. Findings suggest that police demonstrate individualized preferences for varying amounts and kinds of information. The nature of the offense was considered most frequently. The attitude of the offender was also an important determinant of the decision outcome; and the offender's attitude then influenced the amount and type of information subsequently used.