时代呼唤统一的刑事责任能力鉴定标准

阐述了我国制定《精神障碍者刑事责任能力评定大纲》必要性、可行性和历史意义，对如何统一精神疾病刑事责任能力鉴定的评定标准，如何有利于同行专家和司法机关对司法精神病学鉴定结论可采信性的审查提出见解。     

再议毒品所致精神障碍者的刑事责任能力评定

我国法律并未直接规定毒品所致精神障碍者的刑事责任问题,国内法学界和司法精神病学界对此问题仍分歧众多。争论的焦点主要集中在吸毒者陷于辨认或控制能力丧失状态下实施危害行为时该如何评定其刑事责任能力上。从法律的角度来探讨毒品所致精神障碍者的刑事责任能力评定。主张目前实践中司法鉴定人员结合吸毒者的心理态度来评定其刑事责任能力缺乏法律依据,也不适宜对案件的处理,因此不宜由司法鉴定人员以精神病学的角度来认定毒品所致精神障碍者的刑事责任能力。     

论精神病患者的刑事责任

在我国精神医学中,精神疾病与精神障碍的含义并不相同,从刑事责任能力的主要内容来看,我国刑法中精神病是指广义的精神疾病,而在刑事责任能力评定工作中存在是对法律、法规的理解不一致,掌握尺度不同的问题,最终造成评定结果不一致,因此必须对刑事责任能力的评定标准作深入理解与探讨。本文综观法律关于精神病的刑事责任实践与立法,对我国精神病人的刑事责任能力进行深入探讨,发现在当今司法实践中精神病鉴定存在的一系列问题,并对此提出意见,为完善精神病人刑事责任,建立统一的精神病人刑事责任能力评定标准提供理论依据。     

毒品所致精神障碍者刑事责任能力评定现状调查

目的：了解毒品所致精神障碍者刑事责任能力评定现状及鉴定人对此类案件的观点。方法自编《毒品所致精神障碍者责任能力评定调查表》,选择上海市法医精神病鉴定机构的鉴定人为调查对象,通过信访方式收集调查表。结果大部分鉴定人知晓《精神障碍者刑事责任能力评定指南》（简称《指南》）对毒品所致精神障碍者刑事责任能力评定做出了“不宜评定”的特别规定。《指南》颁布前后,所有的鉴定人均未做出过无刑事责任能力的评定;《指南》颁布后,部分鉴定人仍做出完全或限定刑事责任能力的评定。对作案与症状无关、明知吸毒可致精神错乱却放纵吸毒的案例,鉴定人分歧较小。对作案与症状相关、辨控能力丧失的案例,鉴定人分歧较明显。为消除此类案件刑事责任能力评定的分歧,完善立法认同率最高。结论目前在此类案件鉴定实践中,大部分鉴定人并未严格按照《指南》规定执行,刑事责任能力评定仍存在明显分歧。     

毒品致精神障碍者刑事责任能力鉴定证明问题——兼评《精神障碍者刑事责任能力评定指南(SF/Z JD0104002-2016)》的相关规定

毒品所致精神障碍者的刑事责任能力评定是一个相当复杂的问题,司法部司法鉴定管理局公布的《精神障碍者刑事责任能力评定指南(SF/Z JD0104002-2016)》对该类案件的司法鉴定进行了规范。本文从证据与证明角度,对毒品所致精神障碍者的刑事责任能力评定问题进行探讨,提出涉及毒品所致精神障碍者刑事责任能力司法鉴定所应遵循的推定原则和证明标准等,并对指南中相关规定的得失进行探讨。     

探讨急性酒精中毒者的刑事责任能力

我国刑法第18条第四款规定"醉酒的人犯罪,应当负刑事责任。"自从上世纪80年代末期复杂性醉酒的类型从日本引进中国后,司法精神医学界逐渐放宽了相当一部分醉酒者的刑事责任能力评定标准。这似乎有悖于现行法的规定,为了使该范围的鉴定与现行法规保持一致,笔者从医和法的两维角度探讨了如何评定急性酒精中毒者的刑事责任能力。     

精神病人暴力伤害案鉴定中妄想因素分析思路

精神病人暴力伤害案件中,妄想为影响被鉴定人作案时辨认和控制能力的突出常见病理性因素。《精神障碍者刑事责任能力评定指南》为鉴定提供了原则性指导,但在具体案件中,鉴定人对妄想在实施暴力伤害行为中的性质、作用及刑事责任能力评定,常存在较大分歧。本文结合案例,对此类案件中妄想因素的作用及刑事责任能力评定,提出若干分析思路,供同行参考讨论。     

精神病人限定刑事责任能力评定量表在精神分裂症违法者中的运用

目的探讨《精神病人限定刑事责任能力评定量表》在精神分裂症违法者犯罪案件中的运用。方法多中心收集被评定为限定刑事责任能力的精神分裂症犯罪嫌疑人,完成量表评定,同时将限定刑事责任能力进行三级划分。结果小部分组、部分组、大部分组量表评定总分的平均分依次升高且存在显著性差异,分别为21.16±4.17、25.87±5.43、29.35±4.60;量表共18个条目均与评定分显著相关,相关系数从0.154至0.590不等;因子分析得到6个因子,能解释68.485%变异。结论精神病人限定刑事责任能力评定量表内部构建合理,在精神分裂症违法者犯罪案件中,其评定总分能有效反映三级限定刑事责任能力之间差异。     

精神病人不同作案动机及其责任能力分析——附5案例介绍

作案动机与刑事责任能力的评定关系密切。文章通过对现实动机、病理动机混合动机、不明动机(或无动机)下作案的刑事责任能力的评定进行阐述,并附具体案件进行了说明。     

限定刑事责任能力评定量表在器质性精神障碍司法鉴定中的运用

目的探讨《精神病人限定刑事责任能力评定量表》在器质性精神障碍犯罪嫌疑人司法鉴定中的运用。方法多中心收集73例被评定为限定刑事责任能力的器质性精神障碍犯罪嫌疑人,完成量表评定,同时将限定刑事责任能力进行三级划分。结果小部分组、部分组、大部分组量表评定总分的平均分依次升高且存在显著性差异,分别为22.00±2.24、27.46±5.46、31.94±4.93;量表共15个条目与评定分显著相关,相关系数从0.233至0.661不等;因子分析得到7个因子,能解释76.306%变异,判别分析结果表明68.5%的样本能被正确划分。结论精神病人限定刑事责任能力评定量表内部构建合理,在器质性精神障碍犯罪嫌疑人司法鉴定中,其评定总分能有效反映三级限定刑事责任能力之间差异。     

城管主体的多维构设——寻求组织合理化的部门、层级和内部设置

在当前城管执法所面临的诸多问题中,主体设置问题显得格外重要却又复杂难解,且呈现出鲜明的多维样态:在横向维度上,主要表现为城管主体在地位上是与其他工作部门平行还是属于下设机构,在管理权和执法权的统合上是独立行使还是合署办公,在履行职责的过程中如何与其他部门衔接乃至于协调配合;在纵向维度上,主要表现为城管主体在国务院和省级政府中是否应当设置以及如何设置,在市区街道中层级数量和执法权限等应当如何处理;而在内部设置上,主要表现为城管内部由哪些机构组成,某些机构的职能界限和特性,以及执法队伍的地位、性质和编制方面的问题。对照现有的大城管立法例,探寻组织合理化的部门、层级和内部设置,是最大限度地发挥城管职能的必经环节。     

Justice foundations for the Comprehensive Law Movement

Authors examining the developing dispute resolution alternatives to the adversarial system have identified nine converging "vectors" or alternatives in what has been termed the Comprehensive Law Movement. These authors have sought to understand how the developing vectors can remain separate and vibrant movements while sharing common ground. Some analyze these developments as being within law and legal practice, others see them as alternative approaches to law, and still others take a combined approach. It will be impossible to understand how these vectors have meaningful differences from law and legal practice if the search is limited to looking within law and legal practice. It will be impossible to understand how these vectors have meaningful commonalities with law and legal practice if the search is limited to looking external to law and legal practice. Instead of comparing the vectors with the adversarial system, higher order criteria are required. What is needed is a comprehensive and internally consistent super-system of norms; one that can be used to evaluate the adversarial system and the evolving vectors on an equal footing. An Aristotelian natural law virtue theory of justice can: (a) provide a functional guiding definition of justice; (b) serve as a comprehensive and internally consistent super-system of norms; and (c) provide the theoretical and evaluative foundation required to clarify the relationships among the adversarial system and the developing vectors. Finally, it will become clear why the Comprehensive Law Movement might be more appropriately conceptualized as the Comprehensive Justice Movement.     

Therapeutic jurisprudence: A framework for evidence-informed health care policymaking

Translation of evidence-based practice (EBP) into health care policy is of growing importance, with discussions most often focused on how to fund and otherwise promote EBP through policy (i.e., at system level, beyond the bedside). Less attention has been focused on how to ensure that such policies - as enacted and implemented, and as distinguished from the practices underlying policies - do not themselves cause harm, or at least frustrate accomplishment of "therapeutic" goals of EBP. On a different front, principles of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) in law have been developed, most prominently in certain areas of law (e.g., mental health and family law), to support more collaborative, less traumatic advocacy and conflict resolution. This paper draws on current applications of TJ and translates such into a therapeutic approach to health care policymaking that moves beyond promotion of EBP in policy. Health care policy itself may be viewed as an intervention that impacts health, positively or not. The goal is to offer a framework for health care policymaking grounded in TJ principles that does not focus on which evidence is "right" for policy use, but rather how we can better understand how consequences of policy, intended or not, affect the well-being of populations. Such framework thus moves policymaking from an either/or debate to a data- and human-driven process. Utilizing TJ framing questions, policies can be developed and evaluated through open dialogue among diverse voices at the table, including - like interventions - the "patients" or, here, targets of such policies. Collectively, they clarify how ends sought - to enhance (or at least not impair) health - can best be achieved through policy when needed, recognizing that as an intervention, there are limits to and boundaries on the usefulness of policy.     

Last Insurer Standing: Accounting for Policyholder Settlements in an “All Sums” World

Abstract

In 2016, New York became the latest state to interpret insurance policies with prior insurance or non-cumulation of liability clauses as permitting a policyholder to recover damages under “all sums” for long-tail liabilities, including environmental liabilities. But two major questions were left unanswered in New York, as in many other states, when a policyholder seeks all sums recovery from a non-settled insurer after the policyholder settles with other insurers: first, how to account for a policyholder’s prior settlements—through set-off, contribution, or both. Second, how to calculate any set-off or contribution—should it be pro tanto, pro rata, or something else. This article examines the arguments on both sides of these issues and looks ahead to how courts may resolve these questions going forward.     

Using Dasymetric Mapping for Spatially Aggregated Crime Data

With availability of crime data to the public via sources such as the Uniform Crime Reports, and increasing geographic information system (GIS) capabilities for mapping crime, macro-level studies of crime have advanced knowledge of how crime is distributed over large areas. Choropleth mapping, commonly used in macro-level studies, visually displays data by assigning the number of crimes or crime rate to the corresponding spatial unit and using different shades or textures for each value or classified values creating a thematic map. However, crime incidents or crime rates are not dispersed evenly within spatial units, and choropleth mapping masks the underlying nuances of the distribution. Artificial boundaries, along with variations in the size of the unit of analysis, can further distort the true distribution of crime. Dasymetric mapping provides a methodology for refining the distribution of crime within a spatial unit. It does so by using additional data, such as land use and census data, to provide a realistic estimate of how crime may be distributed within the units of analysis. Dasymetric mapping is also useful in creating density maps to reveal clusters of crime normally masked with choropleth maps. This paper will show how dasymetric mapping can estimate the spatial distribution of aggregate level residential burglary within political boundaries in Massachusetts based on land use and housing data.     

Patents for critical pharmaceuticals: the AZT case

Patents and other statutory types of market protections are used in the United States to promote scientific research and innovation. This incentive is especially important in research intensive fields such as the pharmaceutical industry. Unfortunately, these same protections often result in higher monopoly pricing once a successful product is brought to market. Usually this consequence is viewed as the necessary evil of an incentive system that encourages costly research and development by promising large rewards to the successful inventor. However, in the case of the AIDS drug Zidovudine (AZT), the high prices charged by the pharmaceutical company owning the drug have led to public outcry and a re-examination of government incentive systems. This Note traces the evolution of these incentive programs--the patent system, and, to a lesser extent, the orphan drug program--and details the conflicting interests involved in their development. It then demonstrates how the AZT problem brings the interest of providing inventors with incentives for risky innovative efforts into a sharp collision with the ultimate goal of such systems: ensuring that the public has access to the resulting products at a reasonable price. Finally, the Note describes how Congress and the courts have attempted to resolve these problems in the past, and how they might best try to solve the AZT problem in the near future.     

Learning in practice for becoming a professional forensic expert

The study explores the professional development of future forensic experts. Specifically, it investigates how the forensic expert trainees learn through the internal training program at the Swedish National Laboratory of Forensic Science with a focus on the supervision at work. The findings are drawn from an ethnographical study where five trainees and their supervisors have been observed and interviewed. By drawing on a socio cultural perspective on learning, the results show that supervision is crucial for professional development. Two types of activities and relations define how supervision is implemented. There is a "transitional movement" in how supervision is staged depending on the trainees' gradual changes in participation in the work practice and increased experience. Forensic experts need skills and know-how to make wise and impartial judgments, i.e. a kind of tacit professional practical knowledge, as well as the skill to communicate with other professionals. However, the development of a professional language is somewhat unspoken or planned. Becoming a forensic expert is a learning process in practice where supervision plays a decisive role in maintaining the professional knowledge in the judicial system. Therefore, supervision for supervising might be a valuable support for supervisors.     

Protecting the planet: a proposal for a law of ecocide

A wide range of actions imperil the planet and threaten the future of humanity and other species. This essay notes some examples of crimes and harms damaging to the environment and human and non-human species as well as various forms of response that have called for more effective and appropriate models of justice and law than currently prevail. This leads to a discussion of several suggestions regarding the development and expression of an earth jurisprudence and to the history of a proposal that “ecocide” be recognised internationally as a crime. Analysis of documentary sources traces this idea from debates about the concept of genocide to consideration by United Nations officials as to how crimes against the environment might be defined, and shows how near such a proposal has previously come to acceptance and enactment. The article concludes with an argument for supporting a law of ecocide as the 5th Crime against Peace.     

Problematic reporting in DNA cases: the need for accredited formats and certified reporting competence

Quality assurance is a pre-requisite for operational forensic genetic laboratories and professional organisations such as ENFSI, SWGDAM or ISFG. These organisations provide guidelines/recommendations for the methods used (both for analysis and evaluation), and for reporting. Aspects regarding analyses will generally be found in the accreditation scope, contrary to evaluation. Moreover, proficiency testing on how to evaluate and report results is still in its infancy. This is problematic as the quality of forensic science services for the administration of justice crucially depends on how results are evaluated and conveyed.In this paper, we use examples of written and oral statements to illustrate how accreditation could improve and ensure that guidelines on interpretation are properly implemented, reviewed and maintained. We underline the need for certifying and validating the knowledge of the experts in that specific field. Indeed, analytical techniques have for many years been the focus of accreditation, rather than the soundness and logic of communication of the value of the results obtained with these techniques. It is now time for a shift and to provide means that ensure that forensic scientists’ conclusions are as justifiable as their analytical methods.     

Aboriginal women and everyday racism in Alberta: From lived experiences of racism to strategies for personal healing and collective resistance

This ethnographic study of Aboriginal women in southern Alberta analyses how racism is experienced in everyday life and highlights personal and community responses to racism. The stories of fifteen women who were interviewed in 1992–93 provide us with a new understanding of everyday racism: how racism is experienced daily in many aspects of Native people's lives, and how this racism causes pain and loss for Native people. The women's stories also reflect their sense of agency as they respond to racism with efforts for personal healing and anti-racist organizing.