Commotio cordis as a result of a fight: Report of a case considered to be imprudent homicide

Commotio cordis is a clinic-pathological syndrome related to sudden death in young people involved in sports activities. It has been described, mainly, in athletes without previous cardiac anomalies who received a minor blow to the chest which produces ventricular fibrillation and cardiac arrest in the absence of structural damage to the ribs, sternum, or heart. There are few reported cases of commotio cordis associated with violent, non-sports related actions, which are commonly considered to be imprudent homicides. We present the case of a 20-year-old man, who was kicked in the chest during a fight; he suddenly collapsed although advanced cardio-respiratory resuscitation started shortly. Autopsy showed no cardiac lesions concluding that death was due to commotio cordis (blunt trauma to the chest). Toxicological analysis determined the presence of 5.14 mg/L benzoylecgonine in blood. On the basis of medico-legal investigation, the official prosecution considered the death to be imprudent homicide and the aggressor was sentenced to 4 years in prison. We emphasize the importance of the knowledge of the death circumstances through the witnesses’ testimony, prior to beginning the autopsy, to confirm this important medico-legal diagnosis. Arrhythmogenic effects of cocaine and its contribution in the production of these deaths are also exposed.     

Commercial Choice of Law in Context: Looking Beyond Rome

English courts are frequently criticised for their flexible approach to the finding of implied choice and the use of the escape clause in the context of the Rome I Regulation/Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations. This paper argues that such criticism is misplaced. Based on empirical evidence, the article shows that those choice of law decisions are directly influenced by their procedural context and respond to the need to balance the multiple policy issues generated by international commercial litigation. In particular, English decisions need to be assessed in light of three distinct factors: the standard of proof required at different stages of the procedure in England, the national policy to promote England as a center for commercial dispute resolution and the incentives to export English law in certain strategic industries. The use of implied choice and the escape clause to achieve these ends constitutes a legitimate practice that does not frustrate the aims of the EU choice of law regime.     

Beyond suffrage: the role of Cuban women in the state-building years of a failed democracy (1940–1952)

During the first third of the twentieth century, several women joined associations to promote legal reforms. Between 1917 and 1934, the Cuban Parliament passed laws regarding women’s legal status, therefore challenging the traditional relations between state, Church and family inherited from the colonial period. Although the Constitution of 1940 incorporated these measures, Cuban women barely took part in state institutions, but their increasing presence in public affairs marked a turning point in their social status. A few women were appointed as Cuban representatives to international organizations, and political parties set up female auxiliaries. Moreover, several women’s associations worked for peace, demanded improvements in the healthcare system, took action towards enhancing education in rural areas and pushed for effective reform of the Civic Code in order to provide equal rights for men and women. African-Cuban women’s participation in these organizations was limited due to discrimination and they in turn set up their own organizations.     

La justicia social y la globalización monetarista

The author analyzes the doctrinal concept of social justice, in light of the ILO at its 75th anniversary, in which he was questioned their future, like a universal postulate. Whither goes the job? Social justice as a principle and aspiration of the right amount of work trying to promote and preserve decent existence of the community by imposing human values to all speculative consideration, commercial or financial information, proposed by globalization.     

Target screening and confirmation of 35 licit and illicit drugs and metabolites in hair by LC-MSMS

A liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MSMS) target screening in 50mg hair was developed and fully validated for 35 analytes (Δ9-tetrahidrocannabinol (THC), morphine, 6-acetylmorphine, codeine, methadone, fentanyl, amphetamine, methamphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, benzoylecgonine, cocaine, lysergic acid diethylamide, ketamine, scopolamine, alprazolam, bromazepam, clonazepam, diazepam, flunitrazepam, 7-aminoflunitrazepam, lorazepam, lormetazepam, nordiazepam, oxazepam, tetrazepam, triazolam, zolpidem, zopiclone, amitriptyline, citalopram, clomipramine, fluoxetine, paroxetine and venlafaxine). Hair decontamination was performed with dichloromethane, and incubation in 2 mL of acetonitrile at 50°C overnight. Extraction procedure was performed in 2 steps, first liquid-liquid extraction, hexane:ethyl acetate (55:45, v:v) at pH 9, followed by solid-phase extraction (Strata-X cartridges). Chromatographic separation was performed in AtlantisT3 (2.1 mm × 100 mm, 3 μm) column, acetonitrile and ammonium formate pH 3 as mobile phase, and 32 min total run time. One transition per analyte was monitored in MRM mode. To confirm a positive result, a second injection monitoring 2 transitions was performed. The method was specific (no endogenous interferences, n=9); LOD was 0.2-50 pg/mg and LOQ 0.5-100 pg/mg; linearity ranged from 0.5-100 to 2000-20,000 pg/mg; imprecision <15%; analytical recovery 85-115%; extraction efficiency 4.1-85.6%; and process efficiency 2.5-207.7%; 27 analytes showed ion suppression (up to -86.2%), 4 ion enhancement (up to 647.1%), and 4 no matrix effect; compounds showed good stability 24-48 h in autosampler. The method was applied to 17 forensic cases. In conclusion, a sensitive and specific target screening of 35 analytes in 50mg hair, including drugs of abuse (THC, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines) and medicines (benzodiazepines, antidepressants) was developed and validated, achieving lower cut-offs than Society of Hair Testing recommendations.     

Law’s Cultural Project and the Claim to Universality or the Equivocalities of a Familiar Debate

Do our present circumstances allow us to defend a specific connection (that specific connection) between ?legal rules?, ?moral claims? and ?democratic principles? which we may say is granted by an unproblematic presupposition of universality or by an ?acultural? experience of modernity? In order to discuss this question, this paper invokes the challenge-visée of a plausible reinvention of Law??s autonomous project (a reinvention which may be capable of critically re-thinking and re-experiencing Law??s constitutive cultural-civilizational originarium in a ?limit-situation? such as our own). The discussion is developed by recognising that the claim to universality is not only incompatible with a substantive conception of juridicalness as validity but also sustained with difficulty by a procedural representation of discourse and rationality (a representation which, against its own conclusion-claims, could also be said to be culturally and civilizationally bounded). Not forgetting some specific features of contemporary juridical pluralism??namely that which emerges from the counterpoint between semiotic groups or interpretative communities (and their differently assumed claims of intersemioticity concerning the signifier law)??this train of reflection diagnoses briefly a sequence of complementary main difficulties (as ?obstacles? to recognising Law??s demand as an unmistakable cultural project), namely those arising from the formalistic normativistic inheritance (confounding legal autonomy with isolationism), from the challenges and seductions of practical holism (justifying a continuum in which Law??s project loses its sense and autonomy), and also from the familiar debate between exclusive and inclusive versions of positivism and non-positivism (a debate which establishes-consecrates an equivocal counterpoint between Law and Morality).     

Influencing rent-seeking contests

This paper shows that a policy that uniformly increases contestants’ effort costs can lead to an increase in total effort. In asymmetric settings, this “levels the playing field” and therefore encourages weaker players (who otherwise would have stayed out) to enter. Paradoxically, a contest designer whose only objective is to maximize total effort may thus wish to make rent-seeking “more difficult.” These results suggest that the often-lamented bureaucratic red tape might in fact be a rational response to the problem of attracting lobbyists to participate in a contest.