The Strategic Use of Prisons in Partisan Gerrymandering

The census data used to redraw legislative districts counts the country's nearly 2 million prisoners in the location of their incarceration, rather than their previous place of residence. By drawing these phantom populations into districts that lean heavily toward the majority party, legislators can free up eligible voters from those districts to be distributed among neighboring marginal ones, thereby increasing that party's likelihood of winning additional seats in the state legislature. An analysis of state senate district finds that prison populations shift systematically from districts controlled by one party to districts controlled by the other following a switch in partisan control.     

The Strategic Use of Legislative Voting Procedures

Legislative votes can be taken by roll call—noting the position of each individual member—or by some form of indication (sitting or standing, shouting yea or nay, etc.)—noting only an aggregate outcome. Cameral rules define one method of voting as the standard operating procedure and how to invoke any alternative voting methods. We develop a series of hypotheses related to position taking to explain why, when procedures would typically lead to a vote taken by indication, legislators choose to vote by roll call—a means that makes it much easier for actors outside the chamber to observe the positions taken by individual legislators and partisan blocs. With data from Argentina and Mexico, we test these hypotheses regarding the strategic choice of vote procedures and their relationship to observed party unity.     

The Legal Profession as Gatekeeper to the Judiciary: Design Faults in Measures to Enhance Diversity

The gate‐keeping role played by the legal profession in the judicial appointments process gives rise to the translation of entrenched group‐based identity hierarchies from legal practice into the judiciary. The relationship between the composition of the legal profession and the judiciary has been almost completely unaffected by recent reforms designed to increase diversity in the composition of the judiciary. This article identifies legal and institutional defects which help to explain the failure to disrupt the reproduction of these patterns of appointment. We identify two particular defects which we call ‘soft target radicalism’ and ‘regulatory bind’ as important factors inhibiting change. We conclude that if the legal profession is to retain its gate‐keeping role, equality law which directly regulates legal practice should be strengthened and the regulatory binds in which the Judicial Appointments Commission and other public entities are caught should be loosened.     

The Strategic Use of Formal Argumentation in Legal Decisions

In legal decisions standpoints can be supported by formal and also by substantive interpretative arguments. Formal arguments consist of reasons the weight or force of which is essentially dependent on the authoritativeness that the reasons may also have: In this connection one may think of linguistic and systemic arguments. On the other hand, substantive arguments are not backed up by authority, but consist of a direct invocation of moral, political, economic, or other social considerations. Formal arguments can be analyzed as exclusionary reasons: The authoritative character excludes—in principle—substantial counterarguments. Formal arguments are sometimes used to conceal value judgements based on substantial arguments. This paper deals with reconstructing problems regarding this strategic use of formal arguments in legal decisions, with a focus on linguistic argumentation.     

Strategic Voting in Multi‐Office Elections

What are the incentives for voters to vote strategically when legislative policy outcomes are constrained by a system of checks and balances? The policy‐balancing theory supposes that moderate voters split their tickets because such splitting is the only way these voters can achieve moderate policy outcomes. I show that a different type of strategic voting, policy stacking, is characteristic of legislatures that endow the majority party with only limited institutional powers. Focusing on voting for the president and House of Representatives in the United States reveals that a substantial proportion of voters engage in policy‐stacking behavior, but very few engage in policy‐balancing behavior.     

论利用作案工具特征分析作案人的职业特点

在现场勘查中应注意利用犯罪分子的作案工具的特征，分析作案人的职业特点。这项业务在实践中有其必要性又有其理论依据。可以通过作案人遗留在现场的工具或工具痕迹、作案人使用工具的熟练性、作案人持械破坏的技巧性、作案手段的技术性等方面来综合分析推断作案人的职业特点，为侦查破案提供传据。     

High‐End Demand: The Legal Profession as a Source of Judicial Selection Reform in Urban China

Most studies of comparative judicial politics suggest that judicial autonomy emerges from democratic competition, but despite its authoritarian political system, China has introduced reforms that increase merit‐based competition, transparency, and modest professional autonomy in local courts. Variations in judicial selection procedures across urban China reflect differences in local markets for professional legal services: when mid‐ranking judges can easily find lucrative local employment as lawyers, court leaders strategically reform appointment and promotion mechanisms to retain these young, but experienced, judges. These findings are based on nearly fifteen months of in‐country fieldwork, conducted between 2012 and 2014, including forty‐nine interviews with judges across three different cities: Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Chengdu. Employing the subnational comparative method, this article not only builds theory regarding the legal profession's role in authoritarian states, but also offers new empirical detail regarding the selection, performance evaluation, and behavior of judges in urban China.     

PCT国家阶段的战略运用

如何进入国家阶段是PCT申请程序中最具挑战性的一环,它关系到发明能否在有关国家取得有效而可靠的专利,也关系到专利产品能否在商业上取得预期的成功.结合企业在实施专利战略时所应考虑的因素,诸如发明专利性、市场、产品生命周期、商业和技术合作、成本与收益的评估以及专利代理等,围绕PCT申请是否进入国家阶段、何时进入国家阶段以及何地进入国家阶段作分析和论述,并强调在科学发展观指导下有效运用PCT国家阶段的有关战略.     

Use of Xylazine in Drug‐Facilitated Crimes

Human xylazine poisoning is uncommon. This report describes the use of xylazine for intentional poisoning with criminal intent. Two incidents occurred within 3 weeks: the first involved one victim, and the second involved two victims. The clinical presentations were brief coma, bradycardia, hypotension, and hyperglycemia. The victims recalled having been given a drink from a stranger in a hospital waiting room before loss of consciousness. In the first case, general drug screening by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (MS) revealed xylazine in the gastric contents, but liquid chromatography–tandem MS (LC‐MS/MS) of serum did not. In the second incident, LC‐MS/MS screening of both victims’ urine and serum samples revealed an unknown peak in the total ion chromatograms, which a molecular mass database identified as morantel or xylazine. The latter was confirmed by comparison with a xylazine standard. Based on this report, we suggest that xylazine should be classified as a controlled drug.     

Strategic Ticket Splitting and the Personal Vote in Mixed‐Member Electoral Systems

This article examines ticket splitting in five different mixed‐member electoral systems—Germany, New Zealand, Japan, Lithuania, and RussiA—and indicates the shortcomings inherent in any analysis of such ticket splitting that does not take into account the presence of the personal vote. We find that the personal vote plays a central part in shaping ticket splitting in all of our cases except for Germany, a heavily party‐oriented system in which we find evidence of only a weak personal vote but evidence of substantial strategic voting.     

丹麦律师行业的现状

律师的社会地位 在丹麦，律师是一种自由职业，这就意味着任何人只要符合特定的条件都可以成为律师队伍中的一员。因此，这一行业与其他所谓的“自由”职业，如审计师、会计师和地产代理人有许多类似的地方。丹麦执业律师的正式名称是AD—VOKAT。     

法律职业话语的解析

职业主义、精英主义和民粹主义构成了现代社会关于法律职业的三种话语系统和意识形态。职业主义是一种描绘和论证法律职业的理想图景的话语,精英主义是一种论证法律职业的正当性和合法性的话语,而民粹主义则是一种批判法律职业之弊害的话语。三种话语系统和意识形态之间的良性互动,是法律职业健康发展的有效保证。     

Staff‐Prisoner Relationships,Staff Professionalism,and the Use of Authority in Public‐ and Private‐Sector Prisons

Prison privatization has generally been associated with developments in neoliberal punishment. However, relatively little is known about the specific impact of privatization on the daily life of prisoners, including areas that are particularly salient not just to debates about neoliberal penality, but the wider reconfiguration of public service provision and frontline work. Drawing on a study of values, practices, and quality of life in five private‐sector and two public‐sector prisons in England and Wales, this article seeks to compare and explain three key domains of prison culture and quality: relationships between frontline staff and prisoners, levels of staff professionalism (or jailcraft), and prisoners' experience of state authority. The study identifies some of the characteristic strengths and weaknesses of the public and private prison sectors, particularly in relation to staff professionalism and its impact on the prisoner experience. These findings have relevance beyond the sphere of prisons and punishment.     

The Financial Rewards of Elite Status in the Legal Profession

This article focuses on the role of intergenerational status attainment for legal careers. By decomposing the earnings gap between elite and nonelite lawyers at two points in their careers, we find that inherited cultural capital produces an earnings advantage as soon as lawyers begin their careers and that this gap persists over time. We further find that the processes underlying this gap change as lawyers make their way through the profession. While in early careers, the elite advantage is due to stronger starting endowments, the advantage for junior lawyers results from a more complex process, which combines starting endowments, professional capital gained during the first years of practice, and the rate at which endowments are differentially rewarded in the profession. Elaborating on work that identifies the importance of maintaining and concentrating diverse forms of capital in the legal profession, we explain the process through which elite lawyers gain and retain their advantage over time.     

The Honor and Dignity Intrinsic to the Profession

Heads of the regional police trade unions in Sverdlovsk and Dagestan criticize the course and initial results of the police reform in Russia.     

司法现代化进程中的法律职业伦理

在某种程度上 ,法律职业群体的伦理素质状况决定着司法现代化的成败 ,进而决定着司法改革的成败 ,甚至决定着法治国家宏伟目标的实现程度。法律职业群体伦理的现代化是司法现代化的先导 ,是权力制约机制的必然要求 ,是防治司法腐败 ,重塑司法权威的现实需要。就当前中国的司法现状而言 ,司法现代化进程中的法律职业伦理建设应特别注重以下内容 :关注人性 ;崇尚正义 ;忠于法律 ;珍视荣誉。