Case reports of suicide with an electric drill

In this report, three cases of suicide by an electric power drill are described. In the first case, a man aged 51 was found with four penetrating wounds of the head and chest. The second case involves a 56-year-old man who suffered a penetrating craniocerebral injury and the third case involves a 53-year-old man who suffered one head injury and two chest injuries. In the first two cases, the victims were found dead. In the third case, the victim survived his injuries for 28 hours. The case histories and the post-mortem examinations revealed no evidence of homicide.     

The relevance of the detection of troponins to the forensic diagnosis of cardiac contusion

The forensic diagnosis of cardiac contusion has hitherto been based mainly on anamnesis, concomitant thoracic injuries and the detection of macroscopic changes to the heart. Parallel histological and serological investigations of the heart-specific troponins have been conducted with varying results. This paper aims to show whether heart-specific troponins are suitable as a means of securing the diagnosis in proven cases of cardiac contusion and of determining which of the three heart-specific troponins cTnT, cTnI and cTnC are most significant in serology and histology for postmortem diagnosis.In the study, 25 cases of known cardiac contusion and 11 controls without vital myocardial trauma taken from autopsy material were prospectively investigated. Investigation of the venous serum revealed significant differences in the concentrations of the case and control groups for troponin T (mean value 5.5056 versus 0.4982; p = 0.014), for troponin C (mean value 263.9280 versus 68.5640; p = 0.001) and for troponin I (mean value 1404.0560 versus 36.1650; p = 0.003). In histology there are also significantly different depletions between the groups investigated (cTnT: p = 0.002; cTnC: p = 0.003; cTnI: p < 0.001) taking into account the autolysis time.     

Die Garantien für Selbstverwaltung und Universität

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Cable ties used as tool in homicide: relevance of the DNA analysis

An investigation of strangulation tools often reveals DNA of the victim. In some cases, DNA of the suspect can also be demonstrated, even in strangulation tools with a smooth surface like cables. The authors report a case of strangulation of two victims with cable ties. In addition, several used and unused cable ties were found at the crime scene. The DNA analysis detected DNA of the victims, but also genomic and mitochondrial DNA of various other persons not knowingly involved in the crime. Experiments with unused cable ties revealed that even a single handling of a cable tie may leave DNA traces. An enquiry of the companies selling cable ties showed that the cable ties are manually handled, so that foreign DNA must always be expected.     

Interpretation of the term "hydrocution"

Based on a literature study, several interpretations of the term "hydrocution" are presented and discussed. It is difficult to differentiate between hydrocution and atypical drowning. Therefore, the history, the pathogenetic mechanism and the autopsy findings must be considered to establish a clear diagnosis when assessing a sudden death in the water. Practicable diagnosis criteria are recommended.     

Negligence standards and care levels when damages depend on sales prices

In standard models on negligence rules, due care levels can be used for fine-tuning the care levels of potential injurers, and there are good arguments why care levels should vary among different fields. We extend the analysis of the impact of due care on care actually chosen to situations where damages depend on sales prices. This is the case for many contractual relationships, but also for damages on capital markets which are usually calculated as the difference between share prices paid and share prices after the adverse information becomes public. In a model with errors in court, we show that tighter negligence standards may even reduce care levels chosen by potential injurers under reasonable circumstances. Due to this counter-intuitive effect, negligence standards can hardly be applied for fine-tuning the care levels of potential injurers when damages depend on prices.     

The problem of single parent/child paternity analysis--practical results involving 336 children and 348 unrelated men

In a certain amount of paternity investigations, only DNA from child and alleged father is analyzed, thus increasing the possibility of false paternity inclusions. The aim of this study was to determine how many wrong paternity inclusions could be detected in a rather small geographical area comparing empirical results from 336 children and 348 men (13-15 STRs were investigated per person). This comparison between each child and all unrelated men (i.e. all putative fathers from the other cases) with an especially designed computer program resulted in 116,004 man/child pairs. Less than three excluding STRs were found in 1666 child/unrelated man pairs (1.44% of the comparisons). At least one unrelated man with only two or less STR mismatches could be determined for 322 children (95.8% of all investigated children). In 26 comparisons no STR mismatches between a child and an unrelated man were detected, thus at least one and up to three "second father(s)" under 350 men could be found for 23 children, if the mother is excluded. Paternity probabilities between 95.475% and 99.996% were calculated. Our results underline the difficulties in motherless paternity cases using only STR analysis and advise great precaution in assigning verbal predicates such as "paternity proven" in those investigations.     

Lender Liability for Environmental Harm: An Argument Against Negligence Based Rules

A firm strictly liable for any harm done will choose an inefficiently low care level if there is a possibility that it goes bankrupt. One possibility to improve care is extending liability to secured lenders, as applied under CERCLA and as currently being discussed in the EU. I compare strict liability, partial liability and vague negligence for lenders in a model with moral hazard and environmental auditing. While auditing is socially valuable only if it increases the firm's care level, the creditor also calculates the reduction in the information rent. Thus, for each possible care level, monitoring is always too high. This effect is aggravated by a vague negligence rule, where the probability that a lender is found liable decreases in the level of auditing. It is demonstrated that partial liability is superior, because the incentive for excessive monitoring is diminished.     

A. Reviews: general

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