Supreme Court Elections: How Much They Have Changed,Why They Changed,and What Difference It Makes

This essay draws on four recent studies of elections to state supreme courts in the United States to probe widely perceived changes in the scale and content of electoral campaigns for seats on state supreme courts. 1 Evidence from these studies and other sources indicates that changes have indeed occurred, though they are more limited than most commentaries suggest. These changes stem most directly from trends in state supreme court policy that have attracted interest‐group activity, especially from the business community. Like their extent, the effects of change in supreme court campaigns have been meaningful although exaggerated by many observers. What we have learned about changes in supreme court elections has implications for choices among selection systems, but those implications are mixed and complex.     

数码影像能否作为诉讼证据探析

数码影像的质量完全适合刑事照相的要求,数码影像的证据作用也不容置疑。当前,摆在刑事照相技术人员面前的主要任务应该是如何更好地将数码照相技术运用于刑事照相,解决数码照相技术在刑事照相运用中出现的质量、证据等新问题,研究解决的新方法。     

They Were Bluffing

When almost a year and a half ago the "Gaidar reform government," of which Yeltsin became chairman, was formed, they called it a "kamikaze team."     

The Future of Incidental Findings: Should They be Viewed as Benefits?

This paper argues against considering incidental fndings (IFs) as potential benefts of research when assessing the social value of proposed research, determining the appropriateness of a study's risk/beneft ratio, and identifying and disclosing the risks and benefts of participation during informed consent. The possibility of generating IFs should be disclosed during informed consent as neither a risk nor beneft, but as a possible outcome collateral to participation. Whether specifc IFs will be disclosed when identifed is a separate question whose answer is material to determining whether IFs constitute a risk or a potential indirect beneft of participation. Finally, three types of IF should be distinguished and treated diferently during informed consent: those that will be routinely generated (e.g., results of testing to determine study eligibility), those that can reasonably be characterized in terms of their nature and frequency of generation (e.g., misattributed parentage), and those of unpredictable nature and frequency that can be characterized only in general terms. Research protocols should provide a rationale for sharing or not sharing IFs of these three types with participants. Regulatory review of such plans should not, however, be confused with regarding IFs as potential benefts when assessing the study's risk/beneft ratio or merit.     

They are Deserting Russia

Emigration. This problem—which disappeared entirely after the October Revolution and the Civil War, when roughly two million people left Russia—is again becoming urgent for our country.     

Damned if They Flee,Doomed if They Don’t: Narratives of Runaway Adolescent Females from Rural India

Within the cultural context of rural India that emphasizes familial roles for women, this qualitative study explored the experiences of adolescent females who run away from their family homes. Ten adolescent females from rural areas or small towns of Gujarat, India were individually interviewed while they temporarily resided in an institution, along with six members of the institution staff. Throughout childhood, participants described experiencing differential attention and care to domestic violence and abuse within their families. In the context of this life-long mistreatment, the immediate trigger for the decision to flee was family disapproval of the romantic partners that adolescent females had chosen for themselves. Each of the females eloped with the male romantic partner, which led to severe opposition from their families, including explicit threats of endangering their or their partners’ lives, in turn, destroying the promise of a better life that the girls likely sought through escape. Prevention and intervention approaches are needed that promote community change and provide adaptive options for adolescent girls in distress.     

Justice,Context, and Violence: Law Enforcement Officers on Why They Torture

How do police explain their support for torture? Findings from 12 months of fieldwork with police in India complicate previous researchers’ claims that violence workers tend to morally disengage and blame circumstances for their actions. The officers in this study engage in moral reflection on torture, drawing on their beliefs about human nature and justice to explain their support for it. They admit that they use torture more widely than their own conceptions of justice allow, but see this as an imperfect implementation of their principles rather than as a violation of them. Previous research on the spread of human rights norms has focused on how these norms can be adapted to the local beliefs that support them, rather than on understanding the beliefs that conflict with human rights. I argue that illuminating the self‐understanding of state actors who support or engage in torture is crucial to building theory on why such violence occurs, as well as to designing interventions to prevent it.     

What Was It They Lost?

Abstract

The issue of family violence is a modern scourge on Canadian society. Recent estimates indicate that during the previous five years in Canada, 7% of women and 6% of men encountered spousal violence (Statistics Canada, 2005). Furthermore, Aboriginal communities in Canada experience disproportionately high rates of family violence, due to a myriad of reasons. While the impact of colonization continues to affect the lives of Aboriginal people, what is less well known are the more recent social and emotional effects of excessive resource development, particularly in isolated communities. Through an examination of the perspectives of community workers regarding family violence in their community, located in northern Canada and displaced by hydroelectric development, a range of ideas were explored. Critical race theory provides a backdrop for understanding the endemic nature of the systemic racism that characterizes the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the government. The study demonstrates that the social and emotional impact of excessive resource development continues to resonate in a negative manner, even many years following displacement.     

诗无达诂 译尽其能——评毛泽东词《沁园春·长沙》五种英译本

中国是诗词的国度,诗、词、歌、赋代代相传,诗人辈出,世代相袭。中国历代政治家几乎都能诗会文。当代伟人毛泽东的诗词风格古雅,题材广泛,内容丰富隽永,常为国人及国际友人传诵引用。毛泽东诗词早在20世纪60年代初就被译成多种外文,流传到世界各地。其英文译本几近二十余种,各家译本竞显风流。不同译本的对比研究有利于进一步提高译文质量,更加有效促进地我国文学翻译事业的健康发展。     

They Are Giving the Police Three Years

Russia's human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin and MVD representatives discuss foreign experience in police reform and new proposals to improve police work in Russia.     

Revisiting the Instrumentality of Voice: Having Voice in the Process Makes People Think They Will Get What They Want

Research on procedural justice has found that processes that allow people voice (i.e., input) are perceived as fairer, and thus elicit more positive reactions, than processes that do not allow people voice. Original theorizing attributed these effects to beliefs that the provision of voice enhances people’s sense of process control, which people were assumed to value because it impacts their perceived likelihood of receiving desired outcomes (the instrumental perspective of procedural justice). Subsequent research questioned this perspective, arguing that outcome expectations do not account for the effects of voice. However, this subsequent research failed to directly examine the interplay of voice, outcome expectations, and reactions. The current studies revisit and extend research on this topic by asking whether manipulations of voice act as shared circumstance effects. Confirming an untested implication of the instrumental perspective, we show that giving everyone voice increases their belief, ex-ante, that they are likely to win an upcoming competition. However, this instrumental belief accounts for only part of the effects of voice on perceived procedural fairness and on general reactions to outcomes. Results suggest that voice does indeed have instrumental significance, an implication not adequately recognized in current justice theorizing. However, this instrumentality does not, by itself, explain why people value having a voice in processes that affect them.     

Move Analysis of Legal Justifications in Constitutional Tribunal Judgments in Poland: What They Share and What They Do Not

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - It appears that we know surprisingly little about how judges frame linguistically the rationale...     

Sometimes What Everybody Thinks They Know Is True

This essay responds to D. Davis and W. C. Follette (2002), who question the value of motive evidence in murder cases. They argue that the evidence that a husband had extramarital affairs, that he heavily insured his wife's life, or that he battered his wife is ordinarily of infinitesimal probative value. We disagree. To be sure, it would be foolish to predict solely on the basis of such evidence that a husband will murder his wife. However, when this kind of evidence is combined with other evidence in a realistic murder case, the evidence can be quite probative. We analyze cases in which it is virtually certain that the victim was murdered but unclear who murdered her, and in which it is uncertain whether the husband murdered the wife or she died by accident. We show that in each case motive evidence, such as a history of battering or of infidelity, can substantially increase the odds of the husband's guilt. We also consider the actual case on which Davis and Follette base their paper. We argue that testimony of Davis on the basis of the analysis presented in their paper was properly excluded, for it would have been misleading and unhelpful.