The Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 andthe interviewing of vulnerable groups: A practitioner's perspective

Purpose. To discover practitioners' appreciation of the legislative changes that the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, largely implemented in 2002, will have on investigative interviewing of vulnerable groups. Method. Police officers and social workers completed a questionnaire that asked about their perceptions of the Youth Justice and Criminal Justice Act 1999. Results. Practitioners thought that a large number of interviewees would be eligible for the special measures allowed within the remit of the new act. It was believed that the act would result in achieving best evidence with respect to accuracy and recording of interviews and in less discrimination against vulnerable groups. However, it was believed that implementing the act would be demanding in terms of time and money. Conclusion. Police officers and social workers share positive and negative views concerning the implementation and efficacy of the new legislation.     

Murder, Extramarital Affairs, and the Issue of Probative Value

A paper previously published in Law and Human Behavior by D. Davis and W. C. Follette (2002) argued that certain "profiling" characteristics commonly admitted into court have little or no probative value. They argued that this is especially likely to be true when the characteristic used as evidence (e.g., having an extramarital affair) is rather common in the population whereas the act in question (e.g., a man murdering his wife) is rare. Their analysis has prompted a strong response by Friedman and Park and by Kaye and Koehler with a rejoinder by Davis and Follette (all three follow this paper in this issue of Law and Human Behavior). This paper describes some of the nature of this controversy.     

An Analysis of Human Skeletal Remains with Cerebral Palsy: Associated Skeletal Age Delay and Dental Pathologies*

Abstract: In 2002 the authors were asked to examine the skeletal remains of an individual with a known history of severe cerebral palsy (CP) who was 21–23 years old at death. Skeletal age estimates of 11–15 years and dental age estimates of c. 16 years are younger than the known age of the decedent. Skeletal analysis also identified dental pathologies such as chronic tooth grinding and substantial calculus deposits. Scarce literature exists on forensic human remains cases with CP, and this study contrasts the age discrepancy and other features of this case with typical clinical characteristics of CP. A review of the CP literature suggests that delayed skeletal maturation and dental pathologies such as those observed in this case are indicative of complications related to CP. This article may alert future investigators to some of the osteological signs of CP and the probability that age indicators may be misleading.     

权利外观保护理论及其在我国民法典中的设计

权利外观保护理论产生于近代民法向现代民法转向过程中。现代民法应将其作为一项重要原则来对待,其构成中的共性因素包括事实上之外观、善意、实施交易法律行为,而"本人与因"只宜作为具体规则设计时可酌情考量的个性因素。我国未来民法典应在总则部分规定权利外观保护的一般条款,建议表述为:"第三人合理信赖权利外观而与非真实权利人为法律行为时,其依据该法律行为所取得的权利应当受到保护,但法律另有规定的除外。"该条款适用中应遵循穷尽原则,并关注其配套机制的构建和运用。     

我国就业中年龄歧视的实证研究——以1995～2005年上海和成都两市30万份招聘广告为例

就业中的年龄不属被劳动法禁止的歧视种类。据对1995年我国《劳动法》施行到2005年这11年期间30万份报刊广告招聘条件的统计,用人单位录用劳动者主要集中在35岁以下,40岁以上普遍受到用人单位的差别排斥。年龄歧视成为劳动法规定的平等就业与现实差距最大的一个现象。用人单位对劳动者实行不合理的年龄差别,严重限制、剥夺并影响到劳动者平等就业权利的实现。消除这个普遍的、严重的歧视种类:一方面可以在制定劳动就业促进法中增加禁止年龄歧视的种类,另一方面可以考虑在制定反歧视法中明确把年龄歧视作为法律禁止的歧视类型。     

A difficulty with oaths: On trust, trustworthiness, and signalling

In the wake of the Enron and Worldcom financial scandals that rocked Wall Street in 2002, the US government’s financial regulatory body, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) took the unprecedented step in June 2002 of requiring that the chief executives and chief financial officers of America’s 947 biggest companies to swear on oath that their company results and financial reports were to the best of their knowledge accurate. The one-off order was quickly followed by the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxely act, which will require many more CEOs and CFOs to certify their company reports and financial statements at regular intervals. In this paper we apply a simple signalling model to examine whether or not this type of institutional signal of trustworthiness is always efficient. We find that in the presence of signalling costs, the separating equilibrium can be socially inefficient as well as causing a general loss of trust. JEL classificationC72. D81. D82. K22     

Motives,Reasons, and Responsibility in Hate/Bias Crime Legislation

Hate/bias crimes, according to what we may call the literal interpretation, are crimes distinguished by their connection to a certain kind of motive. Hate crime laws and sentencing provisions state that such motives may result in penalty enhancements. According to the standard objection to hate crime laws, this position is problematic: first, criminal law should not be used to pass moral judgments on motives. Its concern should be with actions as modified by intentions, not with the values and reasons of perpetrators. Second, our motives are not directly responsive to the will, so we should not be held responsible for them. In reply to the second part of the objection, this article defends a version of the literal interpretation of hate crime that conceives of it as acting on a bad reason. Hate crime laws add punishment not for motives/thoughts, but for the decision to treat a patently bad reason (such as racism) as a reason to commit a criminal act. If the act itself is reason-responsive, we can be held responsible for what reasons we act on. Given that the truth or falsity of hate/bias on these grounds is not a disputed matter, we can justify using the criminal law to recognize the moral status of such motives.     

Deep incisional neck injuries caused by an electric knife

Electric knives, due to the double blades swinging in opposite directions, have a high injury potential. Tissues such as skin can be cut smoothly without cutting motion and with only little pressure. Authors report on the case of a woman of 47 years who cut herself deeply on both sides of her neck with an electric knife, slightly carving a notch into the larynx and a cervical vertebra and opening large blood vessels. With respect to the extent of injuries the capacity to act had to be questioned. However, considering the absence of venous air embolism and the peculiarity of the tool it had to be assumed that the capacity to act lasted for a short time.     

Temporal Trends in Rainwater Tank Suicides in Rijeka,Croatia—A 30‐year Study

Although drowning in rainwater tanks is a generally rare phenomenon, this method for suicide has been observed in parts of Croatia. Review of autopsy records at the University of Rijeka, Croatia, was undertaken from 1987 to 2016 to examine this phenomenon. Of 469 drowning deaths, there were 35 suicides in rainwater tanks (7.5%). Overall drowning deaths showed no temporal trends. In contrast, suicidal drownings in rain water tanks showed a marked decline over the years, with 15 cases in 1987–1991, seven in 1992–1996, six in 1997–2001, six in 2002–2006, one in 2007–2011, and none in 2012–2016. Thus, suicidal drowning cases as a percentage of overall drownings dropped from 18% to zero (p<0.001). This study reports a very unusual method of suicide that may have occurred because of the ready availability of large water reservoirs in homes. The recent fall in numbers may relate to less reliance on domestic reservoirs of water.     

涉外定牌加工的法律性质及商标侵权判定的重新审视

从文义解释、历史解释、体系解释的法解释角度,以及从法政策角度,《商标法》第48条中“用于识别商品来源”应解释为不带地域范围限制的纯目的条款。定牌加工中加工人贴牌行为的目的为交付工作成果、获得加工报酬,不能享受商标带来的价值和收益,不具有将商标用于识别商品来源目的,不构成商标使用;定作人委托贴牌行为属于生产行为,具有将商标用于识别商品来源目的,构成商标使用,其在“两同情形”构成商标侵权行为,除非能以先用权进行违法阻却抗辩。如果定作人构成直接侵权,则对加工人应视其是否履行必要注意义务及相关义务,判断其是否构成间接侵权责任,具体适用标准建议创设性引入间接侵权中的红旗标准和避风港规则进行漏洞补充。定牌加工中对不同主体进行区分并赋予不同法律后果,可克服诸多弊端,达到既保护合法正当的定牌加工贸易,又保护境内商标权人合法权益的良好效果,也符合权责一致性原则,公平且正当。     

Foreign exchange legislation transformation and enterprise demography in India

This article evaluates the extent to which the legislative changes relating to foreign exchange that have taken place in India within the last few decades, and in particular after 1991, have made an impact on the presence of foreign firms in the economy. The data cover the period 1957–1958 to 2001–2002, and include the entire population of India’s corporate sector. In the period after reforms commenced in 1991, the number of foreign firms in India has increased very substantially. The transformation of the foreign exchange regulation act (FERA) to the foreign exchange management act (FEMA) in 1999 has had a positive effect in inducing foreign firms to India. The FEMA legislation simplifies the maze of controls, procedures and bureaucratic minutiae that have to be observed by all those undertaking to set up and operate a business in India. The changes in the legislative regimes make India attractive as an investment destination for foreign firms.

论标题的知识产权保护

现代知识产权制度是个有机整体。标题可能受到版权法、商标法和反不正当竞争法的保护。一般而言，标题可版权性的要件是原创性，并且不是普通的、惯用的词汇；单个作品的标题不能够获得商标法保护，丛书的标题则在满足一定条件的情况下受到商标法保护；当标题获得第二含义，并且被告对标题的使用造成了公众混淆时，标题才可受到不正当竞争法的保护。     

Increasing Methamphetamine Detection in Cases of Early Childhood Fatalities

Age and organ maturity can influence drug toxicity in children; however, most clinical data and literature are based on drug concentrations in adults. Therefore, the interpretation of drugs detected in children is often difficult or not possible. Retrospective reviewing of pathology and toxicology information from postmortem cases may assist in future interpretations or identify drug trends. A search of the Forensic Science SA case files was undertaken over 15 years from January 2002 to December 2016 for all children (<13 years). Of the 412 pediatric coronial cases, toxicological information was available on 373. At least one drug was detected in 94 cases with paracetamol, ibuprofen, codeine and hospital-administrated lignocaine and morphine among the most commonly detected agents. Methamphetamine, one of the most commonly abused illicit drugs in Australia, was found in seven cases. In the methamphetamine cases, deaths were associated with shared sleeping in three, pneumonia in one, and stillbirth in one. Methamphetamine was considered potentially contributory to death in two cases. The causes of death in the remaining two cases were undetermined. As six of the seven positive cases occurred in the 2012–2016 (n = 106) timeframe, an increase has occurred over recent years in the number of infants and young children presenting to forensic autopsy in South Australia who have detectable concentrations of methamphetamine. If this is an indication of a more generalized increased childhood exposure in the community there may be significant long-term physical and psychological effects.     

Is There a Relationship Between Bladder Outlet Obstruction due to Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia and Pulmonary Thromboembolism?

Benign prostatic hyperplasia with chronic bladder outlet obstruction has been associated with deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and fatal pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE). To evaluate this further, 60 autopsy cases of men with PTE were compared with 60 age-matched controls. The criteria for outlet obstruction were macroscopic prostatic enlargement with bladder trabeculation and benign prostatic hyperplasia on microscopy. Ten of the 60 men (16.7%) with fatal PTE had evidence of bladder outlet obstruction (age 57-78 years; mean 71.4 years). Of the 60 controls, 12 had evidence of bladder outlet obstruction (20%) (age 67-86 years; mean 75.5 years). No significant relationship could be demonstrated between bladder outlet obstruction and fatal PTE cases (p = 0.8). Given reports of this association, however, it is possible that bladder distension with venous compression may act as a risk modifier in certain individuals in association with other significant comorbidities, but this risk appears low.     

“刑法中的行为”研究新视野

刑法中的行为是近代以来的刑法学者试图解决的一大难题。但是,现有行为理论都存在着难以克服的根本缺陷。运用马克思分析劳动过程的基本观点和方法来观察和抽象全部人类现实活动,通过对现有行为理论的剖析、拷问和批判,可以看到行为应当是行为人控制或者应当控制客观条件作用于特定对象具体存在状态的过程;刑法中的行为并不是一个孤立存在,而是一个多维的有机整体。     

Time burnt away: The impact of heat-induced changes on skeletal age-at-death diagnostic features

This paper investigates the established notion that bone calcination has a major impact on age estimation while low-intensity burns have a mere negligible impact. Few systematic researches have been carried out so far about this topic so the true impact of heat-induced changes on diagnostic age features is mostly unknown.The agreement between pre-burning and post-burning observations of age features was investigated on 51 human skeletons (22 males and 29 females with ages-at-death ranging from 61 to 93 years old) subjected to experimental burns. These skeletons belong to the 21st Century Identified Skeletal Collection housed at the Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology of the Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Portugal. The Suchey-Brooks method based on the pubic symphysis and the method developed on the auricular surface by Buckberry and Chamberlain (2002) were scrutinized.The Suchey-Brooks method provided better agreement between pre- and post-burn observations than the method from Buckberry and Chamberlain (2002). However, it became clear that heat-induced changes affected both methods regardless of heat intensity since both calcined bones and bones burnt at lower intensities often showed less than perfect agreement. Therefore, this research demonstrates that the analysis of age-at-death can be impaired in burnt bones, even those not subjected to calcination, with clear impact for forensic and archaeological investigations.     

Cable television and telephony in the telecommunications act of 1996: Economics,law, regulation and politics

Though reasonable people may argue about whether cable television and local telephone services are natural monopolies in theory, historically they have developed with infrastructures that make them more likely to have important declining cost characteristics in reality. Additionally, common carriage issues, especially for telephones, may necessitate regulatory oversight. Though touted as deregulation, and certainly eliminating many cross‐industry barriers, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is better understood as reregulation. The act maintains a common carriage philosophy while attempting to promote competition. However, evidence indicates it is unlikely that the new regulatory regime will result in efficient prices or true competition. Instead, duopoly in cable and oligopoly in telephony are probably the best that can be achieved under the act.     

Intentions and Moral Permissibility: The Case of Acting Permissibly with Bad Intentions

Many people believe in the intention principle, according to which an agent??s intention in performing an act can sometimes make an act that would otherwise have been permissible impermissible, other things being equal. Judith Jarvis Thomson, Frances Kamm and Thomas Scanlon have offered cases that seem to show that it can be permissible for an agent to act even when the agent has bad intentions. If valid, these cases would seem to cast doubt on the intention principle. In this paper, I point out that these cases have confounding factors that have received little attention in the literature. I argue that these confounding factors undermine the putative force of these cases against the intention principle. Indeed, when cases without these confounding factors are considered, it becomes clear, so I argue, that intentions can be relevant for the permissibility of an act.     

Study of rearrests for drunken driving in Norway

The National Institute of Forensic Toxicology (NIFT) in Oslo receives blood samples from all Norwegian drivers suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol. It is well known that a large proportion of the arrested drunken drivers are repeat offenders. The purposes of this investigation was to find the arrest rates (the percentage of subjects arrested once or more) among drunken drivers followed retrospectively and prospectively during the 11-year period 1984–1994 and the probability of `abstaining' from becoming a recidivist during the 9 years subsequent to the year of selection. By examining the rearrest rates during the 3 following years for drivers selected in 1986, 1989, 1991 and 1992 we tried to look for major effects due to the change in the Norwegian road traffic act of 1988. Altogether 45% of the selected drunken drivers were arrested two or more times. Totally the `9-year survival rate' (i.e. not being rearrested) was 60% for drivers with blood alcohol concentration (BAC) selected from the interval 0.06–0.09%; 56% from BAC 0.13–0.16% and 51% from 0.26–0.29%. The data were further evaluated with respect to frequency of rearrest during 3 years after selection, and was around 30% in 1986, while it was lower for drivers selected in 1992 (19%). An explanation for the reduction in rearrest rate may be the changes in the road traffic act which took place in 1988.     

非依法律行为之不动产物权变动

基于非法律行为发生的不动产物权变动不以登记为生效要件 ,而是因法律规定的事实条件的成就而直接生效。在权利取得人办理不动产物权取得登记之前 ,其所享有的权利不具有对抗善意第三人的效力 ,而且非经办理取得登记 ,权利取得人不得处分该不动产 ,但如已完成处分行为 ,该处分行为应为有效。