Fear of persecution not adequate to claim refugee status

In Delgadillo v Canada, the Federal Court of Canada upheld an Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) decision to refuse refugee status to a Mexican gay male refugee claimant because he had an Internal Flight Alternative (IFA). Although the court reached this conclusion, it nevertheless agreed that Mr Delgadillo had a legitimate fear of persecution. As well, the court made an important finding--that people in Mexico who are living with HIV/AIDS do not have an IFA.     

Public visibility of building not enough to start statute of limitations on architectural copyright infringement claim

A cause of action for infringement of an architectural copyrightwas held not to accrue until some ‘triggering event’put the plaintiff on inquiry notice of his claim. The Courtof Appeals rejected the proposition that architects have a generalduty to review public records or visit public sites in orderto police their copyrights; thus, the mere fact that the structurein dispute was erected in plain view of the public was insufficientto commence the limitation period.     

Parallel imports from outside the EEA: CE marking does not constitute consent

The High Court for England and Wales has ruled that a trademark owner who marks products with the CE mark does not unequivocallyconsent to the marketing of those products in the EEA for trademark purposes.     

Validity challenge does not give rise to estoppel in subsequent infringement proceedings

The Court of Appeal has held that opposition proceedings beforethe UK Trade Marks Registry do not give rise to an estoppelpreventing a validity challenge as a defence to later proceedingsfor infringement.     

Inducing jurors to disregard inadmissible evidence: A legal explanation does not help

Three experiments investigated mock jurors' ability to disregard inadmissible prior conviction evidence and hearsay. In Experiments 1 and 2, college students listened to an audiotape enacting a theft trial. The critical evidence favored the prosecution and was objected to by the defense. In three different conditions the judge either ruled the evidence admissible, ruled it inadmissible, or ruled it inadmissible and explained the legal basis for the ruling. In a fourth condition no critical evidence was presented. The critical witness' credibility was also manipulated. With prior conviction evidence but not hearsay the legal explanation “backfired.” In addition, the critical witness' credibility did not affect subjects' ability to disregard inadmissible evidence. The results of Experiment 3 suggest that the legal explanation may have affected the use of hearsay and prior conviction evidence differently because of subjects' dissimilar preconceptions of the fairness of using the two evidence items to assess guilt.     

论投资者的利益保护--因上市公司虚假信息受损案的诉讼形式

"虚假信息案"不同于一般意义上的集团诉讼,由于证券市场具有它自身特定内涵,故相应的"虚假信息案"也应有其特殊的诉讼形式.对这类集团诉讼案件的管辖、原告资格的认定、诉讼时效及诉讼费用等进行了分析论证.     

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder does not predict criminal recidivism in young adult offenders: Results from a prospective study

As the state of research on the relationship between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and recidivism can be considered controversial, our prospective study investigated whether ADHD predicts recidivism in a sample of 283 male, German, young adult prisoners. Currently existing ADHD symptoms and symptoms that were present in childhood were screened according to the DSM-IV checklist criteria. Information on general and violent recidivism was gathered using government records with a follow-up period of up to five years. The prevalence of adult ADHD was six times greater than in the general population, and the number of participants who retrospectively met the criteria for a diagnosis with ADHD in childhood was ten times greater than found in community samples. Survival analyses did not identify ADHD as a predictor of recidivism. Controlling for conduct disorder, substance dependence, and other relevant variables did not alter results. However, among individuals who were released from prison and then reconvicted for a new crime, offenders diagnosed with ADHD were found to reoffend sooner after release. These findings stress the necessity of differentiating between risk factors for delinquency and risk factors for recidivism.     

监狱究竟靠什么防逃——兼议防逃理念的创新

罪犯脱逃引人深思纵观近年来的罪犯脱逃情况,笔者觉得有以下三个案例应该值得重视,或者说他们在某种程度上体现了当前罪犯脱逃的一些新特点和新趋势,这不仅在于能引发我们的思考,而且对于我们如何更好地做好新形势下的防逃工作甚至监狱的安全稳定工作都具有十分重要的意议。第一个案件发生在2004年3月28日晚上8时许,川中监狱两名入监刚满2年的死缓罪犯通过架设跳板的方式,越过5米多高、架设了近万伏电压的电网且有持枪武警巡逻的围墙,乘坐早在监狱外接应的出租汽车脱逃,简称“328案件”。这是一起典型的罪犯预谋脱逃案件,司法部、省司法厅和…     

External injuries to the neck after free fall from great height

Falls from great height are suicidal in most cases. Any antecedent trauma that would indicate an involvement of a third party should, however, be excluded in each case. Herein lies the difficulty in such cases since injuries prior to the fall which could be of criminal nature may be masked by the impact injuries. Injuries on unexposed parts of the body should always raise the suspicion of an involvement of a third party. This applies especially for neck injuries. By a retrospective analysis of 132 cases of falls from great height, the authors conclude, however, that neck injuries may occur after free fall from great height on a flat surface without antecedent trauma.     

Increasing pressure does not benefit lie detection: a reply to Ten Brinke et al. (2015)

When passively attending to suspects, observers are poor at distinguishing lies from truths. Deception research has therefore shifted to examining interview styles aimed at eliciting and enhancing deception cues. Based upon a literature review and three empirical studies, ten Brinke, L., Khambatta, P., and Carney, D. R. [2015. Physically scarce (vs. enriched) environments decrease the ability to successfully tell lies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144, 982–992. doi:10.1037/xge0000103] recommend increasing pressure on interviewees as it would increase lie detection accuracy. In this comment, we argue that these authors (1) misinterpret the literature when concluding that lie detection benefits from increasing pressure on interviewees, and (2) their data do not show that lie detection is more accurate when pressure is increased. In absence of such data, we recommend that increasing pressure on interviewees should be avoided: it hampers the elicitation of valuable information and can lead to false confessions.     

Incentives Increase the Rate of False but not True Secondary Confessions from Informants with an Allegiance to a Suspect

One hundred ninety-two students participated in an experimental simulation testing whether incentives would reduce the reluctance of informants to implicate a close other. Half of the students were made to feel interpersonally close to a confederate who either admitted to or denied a misdeed. All students were interrogated and encouraged to sign a secondary confession stating that the confederate had confessed to the misdeed; half were offered an incentive to do so. Contrary to expectations, closeness did not induce reluctance. Instead, the offer of incentive increased the number of participants willing to sign a secondary confession implicating a close other. Further analyses revealed that this increase occurred only for false secondary confessions. Implications for interrogation practices are discussed.