Discrepancies between forensic identification kits explained by a laser power supply shutdown

The occurrence of two null alleles for the same individual was suspected because of the discrepancy at two loci (vWA and THO1) between genotypes characterized by the mean of two different commercial kits. Reanalysis of the samples indicated there was no null allele, and that this abnormality was indeed related to an automatic laser power shutdown. The laser power supply was set to a value (6.4V) too close to the automatic shutdown threshold (6.0V). The alleles were undetected because of the absence of emission at the time of migration of the two alleles through the detection device. However, since no alarm is triggered in such an event, the users should monitor their laser power supply values.     

Returning to Delinquency: Factors Effecting the Survivorship of Juvenile Shoplifters

This article examines a program designed to provide a family court with a means of lessening the probability that youths on probation for shoplifting will return to criminal behavior. A single staff member within the family court screened possible participants, all of whom were defined as first-time shoplifting offenders and had been assigned to formal or informal probation. Each individual was invited to participate in a four-hour clinic, during which time the realities and possible consequences of shoplifting were explained. If they were able to successfully complete six months of supervised probation, then only the administrative record remained; the conviction itself was expunged. Over a period of nine months, a total of 154 juveniles were invited; however, only 100 actually took part in all facets of the program. A total of 30 clinic attendees and 14 nonparticipants were excluded from the present analysis, owing to missing data, or the fact that at the time of follow-up, they were legally classified as adults. The prior and subsequent court contacts of 110 subjects are reviewed. While less than 3% of either group had subsequent shoplifting arrests, nearly 26% of the program group and 35% of the nonparticipants were rearrested. Factors associated with long-term success and failure are examined. Possible reasons for these observations are discussed, with specific grounding in the shoplifting literature and the concepts of juvenile diversion and “net-widening.”     

“Jurisdictional Realization of Law” as Judicium: A Methodological Alternative,Beyond Deductive Application and Finalistic Decision

The proposed reflection intends to present the problem of judicial adjudication as a substantially-axiologically founded autonomous moment on the practical realization of law, and to explore this understanding in confrontation with external exigencies, mostly teleologically determined—hence, beyond strict deductive application, as a (normativistic-positivistic) syllogistic reference of facts to norms, and finalistically determined decision, as an option among possible alternatives to achieve specific aims. The main objective is to enter into a discussion on the methodological meaning of “integrity”, “hard cases” and “right answer”, as presented by Ronald Dworkin, and a critical reflection on the criticism(s) of that approach levelled by Neil MacCormick, so as to confront the relevance of principle and policy arguments, in order to bring about a different methodological approach, an alternative jurisprudentialist conception of adjudication, incorporating a practical-normative constitutive dialectics between legal controversy and legal system, such as that presented by Castanheira Neves. The focus will, then, be the legitimacy of the connection of arguments of principle and consequentialist arguments in adjudication, its selection and its justification, stating, therefore, a specifically assumed judicium, a judicative decision, having the legal system as its horizon of normative reference and of substantial and institutional autonomy.

     

The Search for “Fred”: An Unusual Vertical Burial Case,

Police witness intelligence stated a murdered adult male “Fred” had been vertically buried in wooded hilly terrain 30 years ago in the Midlands, U.K. Conventional search methods were unsuccessful; therefore, the police requested a geophysical investigation to be undertaken to determine whether “Fred” could be detected. A multiphased geophysical approach was conducted, using bulk ground conductivity and metal detectors, then follow‐up magnetics and ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey profiles on electromagnetic (EM) anomalous areas. A tight grid pattern was used to account for the reduced target size. Relatively high‐resolution EM and GPR techniques were determined optimal for this terrain and sandy soil. Geophysical anomalies were identified and the most promising intrusively investigated, and this was found to be a large boulder and tree roots. Study implications suggest careful multiphase geophysical surveys are best practice and give confidence in cold case searches. This study yielded a no‐body result, effectively saving police time and costs from further investigations.     

European perspectives towards the rise of Asia: contextualising the debate

To what extent can we speak of a distinctively ‘European’ security approach towards the Asia-Pacific region? In order to address that timely question, this article examines how Britain, France, Germany and the European Union (EU) are framing their evolving security roles in the Asia-Pacific region, and how those individual perspectives intersect with each other. The article identifies a number of important common features in Europe’s approaches towards security in the Asia-Pacific, namely the tendency of most European actors to emphasize the economic and diplomatic nature of their contribution to regional security, their promotion of regional multilateral security fora, their rejection of the notion that China’s rise is inherently challenging for regional and global security, and their willingness to signal their differences towards Washington’s emphasis on military power and alliance-based approach. However, and despite the existence of common traits, individual European actors show different degrees of closeness vis-à-vis the US and China and feature different perspectives regarding which security relationships they should prioritize in the region (if any), or the appropriate balance between diplomacy and security and defence cooperation. Such divergences prevent Europeans from developing a coherent security profile in the region and preclude us from speaking of a distinctively European security approach towards the Asia-Pacific.