The incidence of alleged sexual abuse in 603 family court cases

The conflict and animosity that sometimes accompanies child custody disputes can give rise to the propagation of allegations of child sexual abuse. To characterize the magnitude of the problem, the present study attempted to determine whether and to what extent child sexual abuse allegations predominate in family court litigation. The entire one-year caseload of a county family court docket was systematically reviewed and coded. Methodical evaluation of 603 family court files yielded base rates of pertinent allegations and other information profiling the cases. The findings did not support the contention that sexual abuse allegations are commonplace in child custody disputes. Sexual abuse allegations were made in 2% of cases in which custody or access was contested and in only 0.8% of the cases overal. Implications of the findings for future research were discussed.The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Honorable William R. Campbell and Barbara Scott, Clerk of Court for the South Carolina Fifth Judicial Circuit, as well as the contributions of Angie Newton, Frank Robinson, and Kimberly Ellis in the data collection process.     

Federal labor protetons and the privatization of public transit

Federal transportation officials assert that labor protections in the Urban Mass Transportation Act inhibit the propensity of local transit agencies to contract with private firms for services. The authors present results from a survey of a large sample of transit managers and econometric analysis to support their conclusion that labor protections do not appear to reduce the incidence of contracting. The labor protections, however, may be costly to transit management in other ways. The authors recommend actions, aside from repeal of labor protections, to increase contracting by local transit agencies.     

我国《企业破产法(试行)》存在的几个问题

<正> 随着我国经济体制改革向纵深发展,《企业破产法》有如下几个方面的不足和缺陷。 一、关于企业破产时间问题 《企业破产法》第3条规定,“企业因经营管理不善造成严重亏损,不能清偿到期债务的,依照本法规定,宣告破产。”也就是说,在我国,“不能清偿到期债务”即“清偿不能”是企业法定的破产原因,所谓“清偿不能”不是指债务人主观上不愿清偿或暂时因资金不足等原因未清偿,而是指债务人客观上没有能力清偿到期债务。对此,理伦界、立法及司法部门都有很明确的阐述,并基本上达成共识。但稍显不足的是《企业破产法》对企业破产的时间却没有明确的界定,即没有规定企业负债多少或负债多长时间后应强制申请破产。依据《企业破产     

具体行政行为研究的创新与突破——评方世荣的新著《论具体行政行为》

<正> 具体行政行为是我国行政法学理论研究的一个重要范畴。对具体行政行为性质、地位范围的界定和阐释不仅涉及到行政行为的一般理论,而且关联到行政法的基本原理。自1989年我国《行政诉讼法》对具体行政行为加以明文规定以来,其内涵和外延在行政执法和行政诉讼中更有“牵一发而动全身”之势。然而,对于这样一个重要理论范畴,无论是在行政法学学术界中,还是在行政执法、行政审判的实务界中,都尚未予以足够的重视和加以充分、系统的研究。因此,方世荣教授的新作《论具体行政行为》可以认为是行政法学这一领域内的一部开拓性的著作。 该书以具体行政行为作为思考行政法理论的全新视角,通过这一视角,作者关注和反思行政行为的基本理论以及行政执法与行政审判中诸多重大、疑难问题,提出了一系列独到的见解,新论纷呈。     

The Principle, Politics, and Finances of Introducing Academic Merit as the Standard of Hiring for "the teaching of law as a career," 1870–1900

Compared to the practice in other professional schools and academic fields at universities, law professors are hired at a young age based primarily upon their academic merit determined through grades, class rank, and school rank. This emphasis upon narrowly defined academic merit—apart from achievement demonstrated through original scholarship or experience in professional practice—first emerged during "the professionalization of the American law professor" between 1870 and 1900 at Harvard Law School (HLS). Though normative today, this outcome was neither necessary nor uncontested. In the late nineteenth century the new standard of hiring faculty according to their academic merit was energetically opposed by those favoring the antecedent standard of professional experience and reputation. Only when financial considerations counterbalanced that traditional standard did hiring decisions tip in favor of the new principle. Not until the early 1900s, when the second generation of academic meritocrats dominated the HLS faculty, did the new hiring standard become unequivocally established as policy in the school and, by extension, in legal education.     

The distribution of ethanol in postmortem blood specimens.

Ethanol was determined by gas chromatography in a variety of tissues and body fluids secured at autopsy in 61 cases. The specimens tested included right and left heart blood, femoral blood, pericardial fluid, cerebrospinal fluid, vitreous humor, urine, stomach contents, and brain. Statistical analysis of the cases revealed no significant differences among the various blood sites tested. However, the variations in blood ethanol concentrations among the various sampling sites within each case were as follows: 40 cases showed differences of less than 25%; 16 cases revealed variability between 25% and 50%, 4 cases had differences exceeding 50%. In one case, satisfactory blood analyses could not be accomplished. The larger variances occurred especially in those instances in which stomach alcohol concentration was 0.50% or greater. In one case, the variability amongst the different blood sites exceeded 400% (femoral blood--0.043%, right atrium--0.070%, root of aorta--0.156%); the brain was 0.050%, and the stomach contents was 1.2%. For all 61 cases, variances in blood alcohol content among the different sampling sites in a single cadaver ranged from 1.8 to 428%.     

Theoretical and empirical specification of a model of informal labeling

Recently criminologists have begun to explore the importance of disaggregating frequency measures of self-reported delinquency into the separate decisions of initiation and continuation. Given that labeling makes predictions concerning continuation, the purpose of this paper is twofold. The first is to test the ability of an informal labeling model to predict the decision to continue delinquent behavior once it is initiated. The second purpose is to address the broader question of whether disaggregation matters. The findings support the idea that the informal labeling model is predictive of the decision to continue delinquent behavior. The findings also suggest that, at least for a measure of general delinquency, there are some differences to be found by choosing the appropriate sample and form of the dependent variable.