Changing legal standards for proof of causation in hazardous waste tort cases. Plaintiffs' problems and congressional responses

Increasing public awareness and concern over the possible dangers of exposure to toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes has resulted in a variety of lawsuits brought by plaintiffs claiming injury resulting from chemical exposure. The legal system and its traditional approach to tort cases demands that a plaintiff demonstrate that a particular chemical substance was the "cause in fact" of his injury. However, a plaintiff's inability to present credible scientific evidence sufficient to pinpoint conclusively the specific cause of his injury or disease, particularly in cancer cases, leads to defeat in courts of law. This article discusses the existing barriers to plaintiffs' recovery in toxic tort cases and reviews congressional proposals designed to ease plaintiffs' evidentiary burden and increase their chances of prevailing.     

Verdict selection processes in insanity cases

Judicial instructions (traditional American Law Institute vs. Guilty But Mentally Ill [GBMI]) were manipulated within an insanity defense vignette portraying a highly psychotic defendant. Construals were highly predictive of verdicts in both instructional conditions. Instead of influencing case construals, the GBMI option seems to operate by increasing respondents' decisional thresholds for insanity and guilty verdicts, creating a collapsing effect such that few such verdicts are rendered. Between-instruction comparisons reveal that the construals of respondents who choose insane and guilty verdicts are considerably more homogeneous and extreme under the GBMI conditions. Results suggest that many respondents intend their GMBI verdicts to signify diminished blame and punishment, indicating that such verdicts entail cognitive compromises that reflect both the thresholdraising effects and also probable confusion about the jurisprudential meaning of a GBMI verdict.This article is an expanded version of a paper entitled Insanity case construals are not simply verdict justification effects, which was presented at the 99th annual convention of the American Psychological Association at San Francisco, August, 1991. We would like to thank Linda Roberts, Norman Finkel, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. Support for this research was provided in part by a grant from the Baldy Center on Law and Social Policy at the State University of New York at Buffalo.     

Microwards at postcode level

Much has been made of declining turnout in elections. This is due to a number of factors, and several remedies have been proposed. Voting behaviour seems to depend largely on socioeconomic factors. Partly due to the inordinate expense of household‐level statistics, however, little is known of the demographic breakdown of voting and non‐voting. An effective way of overcoming this would be to crudely estimate the demographics involved by allocating households to consistent voting groupings. Large geographic groups are unwieldy and probably not sufficiently accurate; however, postcode‐level definitions can allow similar but non‐adjacent households in the same general area to be treated as a unit for statistical purposes. This allows consistent trends in voting over the last four general elections in Scotland to be demonstrated. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

Genetic enhancement in the twenty-first century: three problems in legal imagining

By what method should we resolve the ethical and public policy issues surrounding genetic enhancement: a utilitarian calculus, appeal to Scripture, application of neo-Kantian principles? In this Article, the author claims that, despite the diversity of our basic methodological commitments, we can advance our shared understanding of the issues surrounding genetic enhancement and come to agree upon certain central features as essential to any adequate method for resolving those issues. The author attempts to make modest headway on both fronts by engaging in "legal imagining." Legal imagining consists of examining hypothetical problems from the lawyer's perspective, the perspective of a caring, professional friend. This Article examines and discusses three problems in legal imagining.     

Review

Timothy J. Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996, xvi + 939 pp., £28.50.

Reiner Weichhardt (ed.), Status of Economic Reforms in Cooperation Partner Countries in the mid‐1990s: Opportunities, Constraints, Security Implications. Brussels: NATO, 1996, 293 pp.

Pal Gáspár (ed.), Changes and Challenges: Economic Transformation in East‐Central Europe. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1995, 146 pp.

Ian Jeffries, A Guide to Economies in Transition. London: Routledge, 1996, ix + 816 pp.

Rumen Dobrinsky & Michael Landesmann (eds), Transforming Economies and European Integration. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1995, xvi + 331 pp. £59.95.

John P. Hardt & Richard F. Kaufman (eds), East‐Central European Economies in Transition. New York: M. E. Sharp, 1995, xv + 709 pp., $39.95.

Eckhard J. Dittrich, Gert Schmidt & Richard Whitley (eds), Industrial Transformation in Europe. Process and Contexts. London: Sage, 1995, x + 290 pp., £35.00.

Gary McMahon (ed.), Lessons in Economic Policy for Eastern Europe from Latin America. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, xxii + 256 pp., $40.00.

Sergei Sinel'nikov‐Murylev, Byudzhetnyi krizis v Rossii: 1985–1995 gody. Moscow: Evraziya, 1995, 316 pp.

Sue Bridger, Rebecca Kay & Kathryn Pinnick, No More Heroines? Russia, Women and the Market. London: Routledge, 1996, ix + 220 pp., £12.99.

Simon Clarke (ed.), Labour Relations in Transition: Wages, Employment and Industrial Conflict in Russia. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1996, x + 282 pp., £49.95.

Oksana Dmitrieva, Regional Development: The USSR and After. London: UCL Press, 1996, xi + 211 pp., £40.00 h/b, £14.95 p/b.

Richard Pomfret, The Economies of Central Asia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, 205 pp., £27.50.

Mehrdad Haghayeghi, Islam and Politics in Central Asia. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995, xxiv + 264 pp., £30.00.

Revaz Gachechiladze, The New Georgia: Space, Society, Politics. London: UCL Press, 1995, xxi + 205 pp., £40.00 h/b, £14.95 p/b.

Uri Ra'anan & Kate Martin (eds), Russia: A Return to Imperialism? Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, viii + 216 pp., £29.50.

Thomas Carothers, Assessing Democracy Assistance: The Case of Romania. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1996, vi+ 144 pp., $12.95.

Peter Lentini (ed.), Elections and Political Order in Russia: The Implications of the 1993 Elections to the Federal Assembly. London: Oxford University Press/Central European University Press, 1995, xii + 292 pp., £30.00 h/b, £11.95 p/b.

Stephen White, Russia Goes Dry: Alcohol, State and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xiii + 250 pp., £40.00 h/b, £14.95 p/b.

Edvard Radzinsky, Stalin: The First In‐depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives. Translated by H. T. Willetts. New York, Doubleday, 1996, xii + 607 pp.

Robert F. Byrnes, V. O. Kliuchevskii, Historian of Russia. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995, xxi + 301 pp., £31.50.     

DSM-5 and Malingering: a Modest Proposal

The DSM criteria for identifying malingering are reviewed and found to be flawed on both conceptual and practical grounds. Alternative models for diagnosing feigned psychiatric, physical, and neuropsychological symptoms are presented. A number of useful features of these systems are highlighted for potential contributions to modified DSM criteria. It is recommended that the present DSM text on malingering be replaced with feigned psychiatric, physical, or neuropsychological symptoms and suggestions for developing criteria for this condition are made.     

Evaluation and quantification of nuclear DNA from human telogen hairs

Nuclear DNA was extracted from human telogen hairs from 60 individuals. Six to nine hairs from each individual were individually extracted. The amount of DNA recovered from each individual varied greatly, and most samples yielded a quantity of 550 pg or less per hair. A selective extraction buffer was used to remove epithelial cell DNA and the amount of exogenous DNA was determined. DNA was also quantified by real time PCR using three different sized amplicons targeting an Alu sequence. The results were used to determine the state of degradation of the extracted DNA. Different quantities of sample (<100 pg, 100-500 pg, >500 pg) were amplified with the Miniplex kits to determine the minimum DNA template required for successful amplification. DNA recovered from hair showed degradation; however, partial profiles were obtained for those samples containing at least 60 pg using MiniSTRs.     

Change in treatment has no relationship with subsequent re-offending in U.K. domestic violence sample: a preliminary study

In this study, data is presented from a sample of 52 male domestic violence offenders who were court mandated to attend a profeminist psycho-educational rehabilitation program in the West Midlands. The extent of both statistically and clinically significant psychological change achieved across a variety of measures (pro-domestic-violence attitudes, anger, locus of control, interpersonal dependency) assessed pre- and post-treatment, and their association with post-treatment re-offending within an 11-month follow-up period is examined. The results indicate that program completers achieved limited significant psychological change. However, the level of psychological change achieved had no association with re-offending.     

Can Cephalometrics Discriminate Between the Sexes in a Diverse Juvenile Sample?

A critical component of the biological profile is sex estimation. Methods commonly used for sex estimation in adults do not work well for juveniles. Population‐specific studies have used cephalometrics to estimate juvenile sex with 80–90% accuracy. Our study attempts to estimate sex in individuals less than 18 years of age using a sample of 1618 lateral cephalograms incorporating all three Angle Class occlusions as well as population diversity. For the sample as a whole, 10 skeletal cephalometrics were found to have significant differences between the sexes. Males and females classify correctly about 50% of the time. Dividing the sample by age groups and race/ethnicity improves results for older age groups and Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. Our results indicate that cephalometrics are not useful in determining sex of unidentified juveniles when age and race are not known.