Delirium Due to Intoxication from the Novel Synthetic Tryptamine 5‐MeO‐DALT

Synthetic tryptamines have gained popularity for their hallucinogenic properties, unscheduled status, and availability from “head shops” and through the internet. Here, we present a case of synthetic tryptamine‐induced delirium secondary to 5‐MeO‐DALT ingestion in a previously healthy young male. 5‐MeO‐DALT led to the hospitalization of our patient after ingestion of a standard dose, presenting with extreme agitation, tachycardia, diaphoresis, and combativeness leading to physical restraint and intravenous sedation. A search of PubMed, Ovid, and Google Scholar for keywords of “5‐MeO‐DALT,” “5‐methoxy‐N,N‐diallyltryptamine,” or “Lucy‐N‐Nate” found no case reports or clinical articles in the literature. Rapid emergence and commercialization of this novel synthetic tryptamine 5‐MeO‐DALT points to the importance of health care and forensic professionals keeping abreast of the latest drugs of abuse and their clinical features. The authors hope this report leads the way in disseminating the potential risks associated with unscheduled and unregulated substances, synthetic tryptamines such as 5‐MeO‐DALT in particular.     

Reanalysis of Korean War Anthropological Records to Support the Resolution of Cold Cases

Re‐investigation of previously unidentified remains from the Korean War has yielded 55 new identifications, each with corresponding records of prior anthropological analyses. This study compares biological assessments for age at death, stature, and ancestry across (i) anthropological analyses from the 1950s, (ii) recent anthropological analyses of those same sets of remains, and (iii) the reported antemortem biological information for the identified individual. A comparison of long bone measurements from both the 1950s and during reanalysis is also presented. These comparisons demonstrate commonalities and continuing patterns of errors that are useful in refining both research on Korean War cold case records and forensic anthropological analyses performed using methods developed from the 1950s identifications.     

Applying the Strategies of International Peacebuilding to Family Conflicts: What Those Involved in Family Disputes Can Learn from the Efforts of Peacebuilders Working to Transform War‐Torn Societies

Intractable international conflicts and difficult or intractable family conflicts have much in common. Relationships are damaged or destroyed, escalation causes parties to become polarized and make bad decisions, communication is strained or nonexistent, and competition and coercion take the place of collaboration. Similarities also exist in the realm of solutions, and those caught in (or intervening in) difficult family conflicts can learn much from the strategies and tactics of international peacebuilders. This article describes eight steps that peacebuilders at both the family level and the international level can take to make very damaging conflicts more constructive.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Limiting escalation is important in both contexts.
• Preventing or correcting misunderstandings is key to resolution in both contexts as well.
• Be sure you are focusing on the real problem(s).
• Get the facts straight (and agreed upon) before making agreements.
• Healing past wrongs is important for long term stability.
• Working both within and beyond the zone of possible agreement (ZOPA) is essential in both contexts.
• Working to improve relationships helps all parties and improves the outcome.

     

Application of Volume‐of‐Fluid Method to Analyze the Viscosity Effect on the Spine Formation of Bloodstains

In bloodstain pattern analysis, the blood droplet volume and surface impact velocity play an important role, and many related experimental studies have been carried out. If an appropriate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model that could solve bloodstain patterns, especially spine formation bloodstain patterns, can be obtained, the blood droplet volume and impact speeds at various crime scenes can be predicted more accurately. For this purpose, Flow‐3D software using the volume‐of‐fluid method was applied to analyze the behavior of human blood droplets during an impact event, especially focusing on the viscous effect on splashing, which forms the spine which can be used to predict the impact velocity. To obtain a non‐Newtonian viscosity model of blood for a computational fluid dynamic analysis, the venous blood samples of 163 people were tested using a hemorheology instrument. Among the venous blood samples of 163 people, 37 samples for which all blood test results were in a normal range were selected for the non‐Newtonian viscosity modeling. From the CFD analysis, it could be concluded that a non‐Newtonian viscosity model is more appropriate than a constant viscosity model for predicting splashing that forms the spine. The gradient of the non‐Newtonian model at a high shear rate has more of an effect on spine formation than that at a low shear rate. The lowest viscosity with a high velocity at the outer front of the radiating flow plays an important role in forming the splashing pattern.     

Experimental Study on the Postmortem Redistribution of the Substituted Phenethylamine, 25B‐NBOMe

2‐(4‐Bromo‐2,5‐dimethoxyphenyl)‐N‐(2‐methoxybenzyl)ethanamine (25B‐NBOMe) is a substituted phenethylamine, which has become highly prevalent worldwide since 2014. Recently, in an autopsy case involving fatal 25B‐NBOMe intoxication, we found the postmortem increase of 25B‐NBOMe concentration in the cardiac blood approximately 2 days after death. The aim of this study was to investigate the distribution of 25B‐NBOMe and reproduce the postmortem redistribution using a rat model. Sprague‐Dawley rats were killed 30 min after intraperitoneal injection of 25B‐NBOMe (0.5 mg/kg) and left for 0, 3, 6, 9, 15, or 24 h (six rats at each time point). Postmortem 25B‐NBOMe concentrations in the cardiac blood increased by more than 10‐fold at 6‐h postmortem. 25B‐NBOMe accumulated primarily in the lung. Moreover, this postmortem redistribution occurred even in rats that had died 1 week following the 25B‐NBOMe administration. These findings indicate that attention should be paid to sample collection and data interpretation in the toxicological analysis of 25B‐NBOMe.     

Saving the Nation's Expendable Children: Amending State Education Laws to Encourage Keeping Students in School

Disciplinary codes are designed to govern the behavior of millions of students attending U.S. public schools. As currently implemented, a great majority of these codes afford school personnel expansive, if not full, discretion to impose any sanction they deem appropriate in response to a student's alleged misconduct. Suspension and expulsion are two frequently used exclusionary sanctions that result in a large group of students who are pushed out of their learning environments around the nation on a daily basis. These detrimental exclusionary punishments have been increasingly used to address minor misbehavior rather than be reserved solely for serious offenses. This Note will describe the harmful implications currently associated with suspending and expelling children as a means to address misbehavior in school. This Note will then propose that all states amend their current education laws to limit infractions that may be punishable by suspension and/or expulsion exclusively to felonies as well as discuss practical alternatives schools should consider as a response to student misconduct. Implementation of this proposal would minimize the high rate of children being removed from their classrooms and would ultimately heighten the opportunity for children to learn.     

An anthropological analysis of gunshot wounds to the chest

This analysis of gunshot trauma to the bony thorax examines 87 handgun and rifle wounds from documented cases in an effort to corroborate an earlier report and to provide the forensic community with additional literature in this area. Specifically, this study tests whether the trauma signatures associated with gunshot wounds in the bony thorax are useful in determining the direction of fire. Because the ribs occupy a significant portion of the bony thorax, they are struck more frequently than other bones and, consequently, they are the focus of this report. This study confirmed that bullets can leave distinctive markers on ribs that indicate the direction of fire, including depressed fractures, bone fragments displaced in the direction of the bullet's path, and beveling. Although forensic anthropologists can determine the direction that a bullet was traveling when it struck a given rib, they cannot give a definitive statement about the number or sequence of gunshots without supporting soft tissue evidence.     

Coalition Prospects and Policy Change: An Application to the Environment

In most developed democracies, parties adjust their positions to polls and public opinion. Yet, in a coalition government, the policy that emerges is often the outcome of negotiations between governing parties. We argue that the credibility of exit threats by current coalition members and the importance of outside parties for the formation of potential alternative coalitions both matter for policy adoption. Building on a new data set measuring the expected coalition‐inclusion probabilities of parties in parliamentary democracies, we estimate the effect of coalition prospects on an important policy outcome—environmental policy stringency—in nine European countries between 1990 and 2012. Our findings demonstrate that only polling shifts that alter coalition probabilities affect outcomes. Changes in the coalition‐inclusion probability of green parties—regardless of whether they are in government—predict changes in the environmental policy stringency of sitting governments. Political polls, in contrast, do not.     

Preliminary Studies on the Absorbance Ratio Method Used to Determining the Age of Stamp‐pad Ink Seal

Stamp‐pad ink seals are often placed on important documents, and determining the dating of stamp‐pad ink seal is important to assess the authenticity of a document. In this study, 20 different brands and types of stamp‐pad inks were classified by ultraviolet visible spectrophotometer. Six different brands and types of papers were classified by micro‐Fourier transform infrared spectrometer and visual spectral comparator 6000. Three different brands of stamp‐pad inks and two different types of paper were used to make diachronic samples of the seals. A method was employed to date the stamp‐pad seals by comparing absorbance ratios and inks of known age. Curves were created to show the relationship between the absorbance ratio of ink and the age of the seals. The experimental results showed that the absorbance ratio method was applicable for the relative dating of stamp‐pad ink seals in some cases where the seal was placed on the document within 10 weeks.     

Isolation and Identification of Three By‐products Found in Methylamphetamine Synthesized by the Emde Route

This article describes the isolation and structural elucidation of three compounds produced during the synthesis of methylamphetamine by the so‐called “Emde” procedure. The “Emde” procedure involves the preparation of the intermediate chloropseudoephedrine or chloroephedrine from ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, respectively. The intermediates are then reduced to methylamphetamine with hydrogen under pressure in the presence of a catalyst. The by‐product compounds were isolated from methylamphetamine by column chromatography and liquid chromatography (LC). Proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H NMR), carbon nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹³C NMR), and nanospray quadrupole‐time of flight‐mass spectrometry (Q‐TOF‐MS) were used to identify them as two stereoisomers of the compound N, N′‐dimethyl‐3,4‐diphenylhexane‐2,5‐diamine and N‐methyl‐1‐{4‐[2‐(methylamino)propyl]phenyl}‐1‐phenylpropan‐2‐amine.     

Cascading Bias of Initial Exposure to Information at the Crime Scene to the Subsequent Evaluation of Skeletal Remains,

Thirty‐eight participants took part in a study that investigated the potential cascading effects of initial exposure to extraneous context upon subsequent decision‐making. Participants investigated a mock crime scene, which included the excavation of clandestine burials that had a male skeletal cast dressed either in female or gender neutral clothing. This was followed by a forensic anthropological assessment of the skeletal remains, with a control group assessing the same male skeletal cast without any clothing context. The results indicated that the sex assessment was highly dependent upon the context in which participants were exposed to prior to the analysis. This was especially noticeable in the female clothing context where only one participant determined the male skeletal cast to be male. The results demonstrate the importance of understanding the role of context in forensic anthropology at an early stage of an investigation and its potential cascading effect on subsequent assessments.     

EU Accession to the ECHR: Between Autonomy and Adaptation

After the European Union's accession to the European Convention on Human Rights the EU will become subject to legally binding judicial decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and participate in statutory bodies of the Council of Europe (Parliamentary Assembly; Committee of Ministers) when they act under the Convention. Convention rights and their interpretation by the ECtHR will be directly enforceable against the EU institutions and against Member States when acting within the scope of EU law. This will vest the ECHR with additional force in a number of Member States, including Germany and the UK. All Member States will further be subject to additional constraints when acting under the Convention system. The article considers the reasons for, and consequences of the EU's primus inter pares position under the Convention and within the Council of Europe, and the likely practical effect of the EU's accession for its Member States.     

Psychophysiological Responses of People with Psychopathic Tendencies to the Concealed Information Test

This study was designed to investigate differences in psychophysiological responses among individuals with psychopathic tendencies. A total 40 students were participated and were divided into two groups based on Levenson Self‐Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP) scores: a high psychopathic tendency group selected from the top 5% of LSRP scores, and a low psychopathic tendency group selected from the bottom 5% of LSRP scores. All participants were instructed to perform a mock crime and complete the concealed information test (CIT). Results indicate that significant differences between crime‐relevant questions and irrelevant questions were observed for respiration line length and skin conductance response in both groups, but heart rate did not significantly differ between groups. There were no differences in psychophysiological responses between the groups. In conclusion, CIT was found to be an effective method for detecting crime‐relevant information in individuals with psychopathic tendencies.     

Extending the Practice of Physician‐Assisted Suicide to Competent Minors

In an effort to address the mental and physical suffering terminally ill patients endure, some states have either legalized or decriminalized physician‐assisted suicide—a practice commonly referred to as death with dignity. However, as the practice of physician‐assisted suicide becomes accepted among states, competent minors continue to be excluded from legislative and judicial decisions. Regardless of parental consent, states institute an age requirement of eighteen years old for participants of physician‐assisted suicide. This Note proposes that states amend their physician‐assisted suicide statutes to (1) remove any age restriction, (2) create a standard of competency that minors must meet to be eligible for physician‐assisted suicide, and (3) implement a procedure to determine whether a minor meets the competency standard.     

Skull-photo superimposition and border deaths: identification through exclusion and the failure to exclude

We report on the application of video skull-photo superimposition as an identification method in a case from Ajo, Arizona in which five individuals died after crossing into southern Arizona from Mexico. Initial analyses at the Pima County Forensic Science Center in Tucson, Arizona determined that the disarticulated skeletal remains represented two adult Hispanic males and three adult Hispanic females. Based on biological profiles, both the males and one of the females were tentatively identified and assigned names. The other two females were too similar in age and height, making skeletal separation and identification difficult. As a result, the Michigan State University Forensic Anthropology Laboratory assisted in the identification efforts by performing video skull-photo superimposition on the two unknown females. The skulls were compared to a photograph reported to be one of the missing females. By evaluating facial proportionality and by comparing a number of morphological features of the face and skulls, one skull was excluded as a possible match and one skull was not excluded as a match to the antemortem photo. Because this case was presumed to be a closed disaster, the exclusion of one skull and the failure to exclude the other represented circumstantial identifications.     

Trauma‐Informed Approaches to Juvenile Justice: A Critical Race Perspective

Youth of color experience disproportionate juvenile justice contact and recidivism. Trauma‐informed approaches may provide important support to these youth and improve their future outcomes. This paper describes dynamics of the various levels of the juvenile justice system (i.e., police contact, courts, correctional placement, aftercare) that perpetuate psychological trauma among adjudicated youth of color. This paper explores trauma‐informed approaches from a critical race theory perspective to address issues of systemic racial injustice in the juvenile justice system. Current and emerging models for trauma‐informed juvenile justice and implications for practice, policy, and research are discussed.     

Adapting the Chumbley Score to Match Striae on Land Engraved Areas (LEAs) of Bullets,

The same‐source problem remains a major challenge in forensic toolmark and firearm examination. Here, we investigate the applicability of the Chumbley method (J Forensic Sci, 2018, 63, 849; J Forensic Sci, 2010, 55, 953) (10,12), developed for screwdriver markings, for same‐source identification of striations on bullet LEAs. The Hamby datasets 44 and 252 measured by NIST and CSAFE (high‐resolution scans) are used here. We provide methods to identify parameters that minimize error rates for matching of LEAs, and a remedial algorithm to alleviate the problem of failed tests, while increasing the power of the test and reducing error rates. For 85,491 land‐to‐land comparisons (84,235 known nonmatches and 1256 known matches), the adapted test does not provide a result in 176 situations (originally more than 500). The Type I and Type II error rates are 7.2% (6105 out of 84,235) and 21.4% (271 out of 1256), respectively. This puts the proposed method on similar footing as other single‐feature matching approaches in the literature.