The use of serum protein analysis in the diagnosis of fatal envenomation via Crotalus horridus (timber rattlesnake)

Deaths occurring due to rattlesnake envenomization are extremely rare and must be thoroughly investigated in the same manner as any other type of death. Our research presents the case of an adult white male who suffered a fatal timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) envenomation in northwest Florida in 2018. Blood samples were taken from the decedent's heart and vasculature of the chest and sent for serum proteomic analysis. Serum proteomic analysis was utilized in order to identify proteins from timber rattlesnake (C. horridus) found within the victim's blood. The confirmation of the presence of timber rattlesnake venom within the victim's blood allows the forensic pathologist to determine the cause of death most accurately and likewise, assists with the manner of death determination. Blood samples were separated into two groups: one with the abundant endogenous proteins depleted to facilitate detection of lower abundant proteins and one undepleted. In the depleted sample, a total of 712 proteins were identified, with 47 of the proteins (6.6%) occurring originating from timber rattlesnake (C. horridus). Likewise, a total of 742 proteins were identified in the undepleted sample, with 52 of the proteins (7.0%) occurring in timber rattlesnake (C. horridus). No timber rattlesnake (C. horridus) proteins were found in control human serum.     

Access to the health records of deceased patients: Why the law is in need of review

A glance at the cases that came before the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in the period between 2005 and 2008 immediately shows that a consistently high number relate to access to the health records of deceased patients. What accounts for this interesting state of affairs? This paper aims to demonstrate that the law regulating this increasingly important area is a patchwork of case law, statutes and professional guidelines that do not always lend themselves to a congruous and seamless amalgamation. This has in turn resulted in the need for creative interpretation and at times legal gymnastics on the part of the ICO and medical professionals. We argue that in an age where allegations of medical negligence are proliferating (and access to the health records of the deceased could help confirm or dispel suspicions of wrongdoings leading to the death) and where genetic information about a deceased relative could offer valuable support to a living patient's preventative care, diagnosis and treatment plans, the law regulating access to the health records of deceased patients in the UK can no longer afford to be unclear and confusing. There is, therefore, an urgent need for review.     

The juvenile death penalty and the Eighth Amendment

The present study investigated the Eighth Amendment tests of societal consensus and proportionality as applied to juvenile death penalties. A sample of former jurors (N=179) voted on whether to execute the defendant in a hypothetical case. Defendant's age (10, 15, 16, or 19) and level of remorse were varied. A large percentage of participants voted to execute the defendant in each condition, but the defendant's age and the participant's attitude toward juvenile culpability significantly predicted the likelihood of execution. Implications for the constitutionality of the juvenile death penalty and future research directions are discussed.     

Don't Mention the War! R. v Bottrill,ex parte Kuchenmeister (1946) Revisited

R. v Bottrill, ex parte Kuchenmeister (1946) established that a ministerial certificate is determinative of whether a state of war exists between the United Kingdom and another state. But of the ‘Aryan’ German, Kuchenmeister, long a resident in Britain and with a British family, virtually nothing is known. The present paper seeks to uncover the complex story of Kuchenmeister's business activities in the British armaments industry before the war, MI5’s determination to have him interned on the not wholly convincing footing of his loyalty to Germany during the war, and Kuchenmeister's prolonged legal battles with the Home Office. A distinction between the law in books and the law in action may be sharply drawn from the affair.     

Patient termination of a life-sustaining medical device: Suicide or natural death?

Medical technology has made tremendous strides in extending the lives of patients who have suffered organ failure. Machines can now replace the function of the kidneys, the heart, and other vital organs. Much has been written about a patient's right to refuse or direct the withdrawal of medical treatment, especially at the end of life, under the guise of “death with dignity.” However, little attention has been paid to the situation where a patient elects to deactivate their life-sustaining medical device without a physician's involvement. This raises the challenging question of whether the patient's manner of death should be classified as suicide or natural. Surprisingly, common law, statutes, medical ethics, and public health practice are not in alignment on the answer. This article will explore the ramifications and far-reaching impact that such divergence has on the survivors and the medical community, as well as recommend corrective actions and practical approaches for the medical and legal practitioner.     

Evolution of the Psychological Autopsy: Fifty Years of Experience at the Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner‐Coroner's Office

The origin of the psychological autopsy was in the late 1950s and the result of a collaboration between the Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner‐Coroner's Office and the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center. It was conceptualized as a thorough retrospective analysis of the decedent's state of mind and intention at the time of death. It was used initially in “equivocal” deaths where the manner of death was possibly either suicide or accident. Later, it was used in cases where a party (primarily family members) protested the Medical Examiner‐Coroner's suicide determination. Over the past 25 years, the University of Southern California Institute of Psychiatry, Law, and Behavioral Science has served as the psychiatric/psychological consultants to the Coroner's Department. Research findings, the use of this approach in high‐profile cases, and the most recent manner in which the psychological autopsy is conducted are discussed.     

The Signaling Effect of Pro se Status

When claimants press their claims without counsel, they fail at virtually every stage of civil litigation and overwhelmingly fail to obtain meaningful access to justice. This research program harnesses psychological science to experimentally test a novel hypothesis: mainly, a claimant's pro se status itself sends a signal that biases decision making about the claimant and her claim. We conducted social psychological experiments with the public (N = 157), law students (N = 198), and employment discrimination lawyers (N = 39), holding the quality and merit of a Title VII sex discrimination case constant. In so doing, we examined whether a claimant's pro se status itself shapes stereotypes held about the claimant and biases decision making about settlement awards. These experiments reveal that pro se status influences stereotypes of claimants and settlement awards received. Moreover, the signaling effect of pro se status is exacerbated by socialization in the legal profession. Among law‐trained individuals (i.e., law students and lawyers), a claimant's pro se status generates negative stereotypes about the claimant and these negative stereotypes explain the adverse effect of pro se status on decision making about settlement awards.     

Do Plaintiffs in CERCLA § 113 Contribution Actions Need to Prove Consistency with the National Contingency Plan?

This article discusses whether the claimant in a contribution action brought under section 113 of Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act needs to prove that the costs were incurred in a manner that was consistent with the National Contingency Plan (NCP). This article examines the recent case law as well as the Supreme Court decisions that address the relationship between sections 107 and 113 and concludes that although the recent case law suggests that NCP is a requirement, the Supreme Court's analysis of the relationship between sections 107 and 113 in United States v. Atlantic Research Corp. may undermine the basis for that conclusion.     

The Rule of Law between England and Sudan: Hay,Thompson, and Massoud

Massoud, Mark. 2013 . Law's Fragile State: Colonial, Authoritarian and Humanitarian Legacies in Sudan . Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. x–277. ISBN: 9781107440050. Paper $34.99 Two significant writings, one by Douglas Hay and the other by E. P. Thompson, appeared in 1976. Both sought to explain relationships between law and social (specifically, ruling‐class) power in a manner that avoided treating law either simply as a coercive instrument of class domination (“vulgar Marxism”), or as a good for all “(liberal legalism”). They overlapped and each was influenced by the other, but they differed significantly, in substance, in tone, and in admirers. Mark Massoud sensibly and thoughtfully draws inspiration from both. This article queries, however, whether his account of the role and rule of law in Sudan manages to resolve a significant tension between Hay and Thompson. This results in a certain ambivalence in the telling, a sometimes anguished oscillation between two interpretive modes, perhaps sensibilities, represented by Hay and Thompson, each of which can lead in different directions.     

Determination of γ-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) and its precursors in blood and urine samples: A salting-out approach

γ-Hydroxybutyrate (GHB) is an increasingly popular drug of abuse that causes stimulation, euphoria, anxiolysis or hypnosis, depending on the dose used. Low doses of the drug are used recreationally, and also implicated in drug-facilitated sexual assaults. Because of the unusually steep dose–response curves, accidental GHB overdosing, leading to coma, seizures or death can occur. Being a controlled substance, GHB is often substituted with its non-scheduled precursors γ-butyrolactone (GBL) and 1,4-butanediol (BD), which are rapidly metabolized into GHB in the body. Here we describe an assay for GHB, GBL and BD in blood and/or urine samples. GHB and BD were extracted from diluted 200 μL aliquots of samples with t-butylmethylether (plus internal standard benzyl alcohol) in test tubes preloaded with NaCl. After acidification and centrifugation the solvent phase was transferred to a test tube preloaded with Na₂SO₄, incubated for 30 min, centrifuged again, and evaporated in vacuum. The residue was mixed with N-methyl-N-trimethylsilyl-trifluoroacetamide (MSTFA) in acetonitrile, and injected into a GC–MS. When analyzing GBL, the salting-out step was omitted, and analysis was performed with a GC–FID apparatus. As revealed by the validation data this procedure is suitable for quantitative determination of GHB and its precursors in blood and/or urine samples.     

On the Relations between Agent and Principal: Angove's Pty Ltd v Bailey

In Angove's Pty Ltd v Bailey the Supreme Court faced ‘two important and controversial questions of commercial law’: whether an agent's authority could ever be ‘irrevocable’, and whether the receipt of money by an imminent insolvent could ever give rise to a constructive trust of that sum. It answered both in the affirmative, albeit subject to heavy qualifications. This note supports these conclusions in principle, however it will argue that the court's reasoning, especially in answering the second question, leaves much to be desired. In particular, it ignored the central role of fiduciary law in regulating the conduct of agents.     

Review of pathologic findings in remnant hearts following valve donation

The failure of medical examiners/coroners (ME/C) to allow heart valve donation is a major problem encountered by tissue agencies. Even though many ME/C favor tissue donation they remain responsible for determination of cause and manner of death. In 2001, the Jesse E. Edwards Registry of Cardiovascular Disease was approached by one of the nation's largest tissue procurement agencies (The American Red Cross--ARC) for the purpose of performing cardiovascular pathologic examinations following valve donation. The affiliation existed from October 2001 to January 2005. This study was undertaken to review all 593 postvalve recovery heart remnants received during that time period to tabulate the abnormalities identified and to determine whether donation interfered with the determination of cause of death. For each case, a preliminary cause of death was provided by the ARC. The decedent's body height and weight were also provided. Using the preliminary cause of death, the 593 cases were divided into natural and nonnatural manner of death groups. This division of the cases resulted in 106 cases placed in the natural manner of death group and 487 cases in the nonnatural manner of death group. For each case, all cardiac findings including significant conditions, additional findings, incidental findings, and congenital abnormalities were tabulated. Within the natural manner of death group, 15 cases had a noncardiac cause of death and 91 cases had a cause of death suspected to be cardiac related. In the 91 cases, a total of 132 significant cardiac findings were identified and there were six structurally normal hearts including two infants. In the nonnatural manner of death group, 214 significant cardiac findings were identified and 222 cases had a structurally normal heart. In both natural and nonnatural groups, the most common cardiac abnormality was atherosclerotic coronary artery disease. Other frequently encountered conditions were also identified including 11 cases with acute angle of origin of a coronary artery (five cases natural group; six cases nonnatural group). An important feature of this review was the recognition of potentially inheritable conditions that were diagnosed in both natural and nonnatural manner of death groups. There were three cases of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (one natural; two nonnatural), three cases of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (one natural; two nonnatural), and one case of mitral valve prolapse (natural). In reviewing these cases, we did not feel that valve donation severely impaired cardiac pathologic examination. The benefits of cardiovascular pathologic examination by a cardiac pathologist include the identification of significant and incidental findings and recognition of potentially inheritable conditions.     

Resisting Multiple Narratives of Law in Transition Countries: Russia and Beyond

Burbank, Jane . 2004 . Russian Peasants Go to Court: Legal Culture in the Countryside, 1905–1917 . Bloomington, IN : Indiana University Press. Pp. xix + 374. $49.95 cloth. Feifer, George . 1964 . Justice in Moscow . New York : Simon and Schuster. Pp. 336 . $20.95 paper. Kaminskaya, Dina . 1982 . Final Judgment: My Life as a Soviet Defense Attorney . Trans. Michael Glenny. New York : Simon and Schuster. Pp. 364 . Out of print. Ledeneva, Alena V . 2013 . Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Pp. xv + 332. $90.00 cloth; $32.99 paper. McDonald, Tracy . 2011 . Face to the Village: The Riazan Countryside under Soviet Rule, 1921–1930 . Toronto : University of Toronto Press. Pp. xvii + 422. $75.00 cloth. Politkovskaya, Anna . 2004 . Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy . Trans. Arch Tait. London : Harvill Press. Pp. 304 . $17.00 paper. Popova, Maria . 2012 . Politicized Justice in Emerging Democracies: A Study of Courts in Russia and Ukraine . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Pp. xii + 197. $103.00 cloth; $29.99 paper. Romanova, Ol'ga . 2010 . Butyrka . Moscow : Izdatel'stvo Astrel'. Pp. 316 . 240 rubles. The literature on the role of law in countries with so‐called hybrid regimes that are stuck somewhere between democracy and authoritarianism tends to dwell on the politicization of law and the courts. This has the effect of discounting the importance of the vast majority of cases that are decided in accord with the law. Taking Russia as a case study, this essay reviews a cross‐section of the literature on its courts in order to document this tendency and explore why alternative narratives of law have failed to gain traction: Burbank's Russian Peasants Go to Court ( 2004 ); Feifer's Justice in Moscow ( 1964 ); Kaminskaya's Final Judgment ( 1982 ); Ledeneva's Can Russia Modernise? ( 2013 ); McDonald's Face to the Village ( 2011 ); Politkovskaya's Putin's Russia ( 2004 ); Popova's Politicized Justice in Emerging Democracies ( 2012 ); and Romanova's Butyrka ( 2010 ).     

From Movement to Mentality,from Paradigm to Perspective,from Action to Performance: Law and Society at Mid‐Life

Kitty Calavita's Invitation to Law & Society: An Introduction to the Study of Real Law (2010) offers a broad and useful overview of the intellectual accomplishments of law and society scholars and a self‐confident assertion that they perform an invaluable service by focusing on “real law,” that is, law in action rather than law on the books. This essay argues that the field is more fragmented than Calavita notes and that law and society research is neither engaged with a common set of questions nor organized around a single central insight or an agreed‐upon paradigm. Moreover, this essay raises questions about Calavita's claims about “real” law and suggests that we complement law and society's traditional focus by examining the varied performances of law, whether in texts or in the world beyond those texts.     

Preventing youth suicide: issues for law enforcement personnel

Suicide is a leading cause of death for adolescents. A number of problem behaviors associated with youth suicide fall into the purview of law enforcement personnel, and they are therefore in a position to detect risk and prevent suicidal behaviors. Eight hundred one youth identified as having school difficulty, a group at increased risk for both suicide and legal problems, participated in a paper and pencil survey followed by an interview focusing on suicide risk and protective factors. Linear regression was used to examine the ability of factors within each risk and protective factor dimension to predict current suicide risk. The study goal was to determine the most relevant factors influencing suicide risk in each domain examined. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for assessment and policy for law enforcement personnel.     

Reflections on Henry Ford's War on Jews

Woeste, Victoria Saker. 2012 . Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. This essay provides an introduction to and overview of four essays that emerged from an “Author Meets Readers” session at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association, considering Victoria Saker Woeste's book, Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech. Three essays are authored by panelists (Aviam Soifer, Carroll Seron, and Clyde Spillenger) and a final essay is provided by Woeste. The essays explore larger themes suggested by the book, including what the involvement of Louis Marshall reveals about the rise and role of spokespeople purporting to represent Jewish interests; whether the arc of Aaron Sapiro's education and career challenges our understandings of the development of the legal profession in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; and how the law of group libel intersected with government attempts to regulate hate speech during the twentieth century. Woeste ends the symposium with a reconsideration of Henry Ford's War and how it fits into the new civil rights history.     

Loyal Opposition: Minorities and State Law

This essay on Mitra Sharafi's Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia: Parsi Legal Culture, 1772–1947 (2014) focuses on the relationship between certain minorities and the law of the state. It seeks to expand the discussion found in Sharafi's book in three directions: first, by comparing the attitude of Parsis in South Asia to the law of the state with the attitude of German Jewish immigrants in mandatory Palestine and Israel to state law; second, by asking whether the Parsis' embracing of state law was linked to their economic success; and, finally, by pointing to the nature of law itself as a “minority discourse.”     

Computer-Animated Displays and the Jury: Facilitative and Prejudicial Effects

Two experiments assessed the effects of computer-animated displays on mock jurors. In both, participants watched a trial involving a dispute over whether a man who fell to his death had accidentally slipped or jumped in a suicide. They watched a proplaintiff or prodefendant version in which the body landed 5–10 feet or 20–25 feet from the building. Within each condition, the distance testimony was presented orally or with an animated display. When the tape depicted the event in a neutral manner, judgments were more consistent with the physical evidence. But when the plaintiff and defense used the tape to depict their own partisan theories, participants increasingly made judgments that contradicted the physical evidence. Results suggest that computer-animated displays have greater impact than oral testimony. Whether that impact is to facilitate or mislead a jury, however, depends on the nature of the display.     

Undetermined Manner of Death: An Autopsy Series

A manner of death may be ruled undetermined by the forensic pathologist when there is insufficient information about the circumstances surrounding the death to make a ruling. The aim of our study was to retrospectively analyze a series of autopsy cases that were classified as undetermined manner of death after complete investigations. In all, 48 cases were examined. In 23 cases (48%), the cause of death was determined. The most frequent cause of death was toxic death (n = 11). More than one manner of death was deemed conceivable for most cases (n = 39). The most frequent and the most probable manner of death was accident (n = 37). Homicide was not excluded in about 23% of the cases. Our study showed that the manner of death may remain undetermined despite an established cause of death, and even when two or more conceivable causes of death are considered. Our study pointed out that undetermined manner of death covers a wide range of situations and that homicide may be underestimated.     

Are individuals' familiarity judgments diagnostic of prior contact?

The extensive eyewitness memory research literature has been restricted to memory for strangers. Although it is often assumed that eyewitnesses are more accurate identifying familiar than unfamiliar individuals, little is known about whether individuals' familiarity judgments are diagnostic of prior contact. Caucasian and Asian sophomores (N=139) in two small private high schools viewed yearbook pictures of (a) graduated students from their school who were seniors (fourth year) when participants were freshmen (first year) (familiar) and (b) unfamiliar individuals, and responded whether each was ‘familiar’. The design was completely crossed; familiar faces at each school served as unfamiliar faces at the other school. Based on d′ data, the cross-race effect resulted for familiarity judgments. Also, although individuals' familiarity judgments were diagnostic of prior contact, accuracy was low (mean hit rate=0.42; mean false alarm rate=0.23), rendering an eyewitness's report of having seen a perpetrator casually in the past of limited forensic value.