Client Games: Defense Attorney Perspectives on Their Relations with Criminal Clients

In this study, relations between criminal defense lawyers and their clients are explored from the attorneys'perspective using interviews with 155 defense counsel from nine felony trial courts. Attorneys claim public clients are more skeptical and less willing to accept their professional authority than private clients and that they need to take extra steps to gain their cooperation. The accountability of attorneys is investigated in relationship to the need to establish "client control. " This problem is resolved through a gamelike situation leading to the apparent paradox that attorneys share decision-making power with public clients contrary to their expectations.     

Exploiting the common pool or looking to the future? A study of free-riding leading up to the 2007 municipal amalgamations in Denmark

ABSTRACT

Municipal amalgamations can create incentives for opportunistic behaviour. Several fairly recent studies have examined this on amalgamations in Denmark and Sweden using the so-called law of 1 over n. However, they have yielded inconclusive results and I argue that one plausible explanation is a theoretical deficiency in the law, as it does not account for how future political representation can mitigate the incentive to free-ride. I examine this using large-scale amalgamations in Denmark in 2007. This case is quite unique as the amalgamations were implemented in such a manner that they constitute a quasi-experiment, and because an extra fiscal year was added to the election period where the composition of the new councils was known with certainty, while the municipalities retained some decision-making power. The study’s findings are consistent with the argument that the incentive to free-ride depends on the decision makers’ future political stake in the new, amalgamated municipality.     

Gendered entanglements: Dakotas and Scandinavians at Spirit Lake, 1900–1930

In this article the author explores the interconnections between the social and the material—as people move to a space on the land, coexisting with one another. By focusing in on one specific place—the Spirit Lake Dakota Indian Reservation (formerly called the Devils Lake Sioux Indian Reservation) in North Dakota—the author analyzes what happened when white immigrants came to homestead and live on land historically reserved for Dakotas. Against the backdrop of Native dispossession, this illustrative case reveals the ways everyday interactions created entanglements through landownership, the gendered division of paid work, neighboring practices, and leasing land. It challenges us to uncover gendered processes, probe denials, and interrogate silences.     

Technology policy 2000: university to industry transfer

Utilizing the knowledge, know-how, technologies developed in universities to improve the competitiveness of U.S. industry is a super-optimum technology policy solution. Transferring technologies developed at universities to industry vastly expands the resource base by providing companies with no internal research and development effort with that capability and by augmenting the R&D of companies with some level of internal effort already in place. By taking advantage of university technology transfer, all companies and policy-makers can emphasize innovation as a goal to be included in a competitive business strategy. Having universities as participants in technology transfer activities maximizes the benefits and minimizes the costs to all by providing for shared equipment, personnel, and laboratory facilities. This last fact is particularly clear when pre-competitive research is undertaken at university-based centers or consortiums which draw their members from wide groups of industry participants. Drawing on data gathered as part study of university-industry research and development (R&D) interactions, this paper examines the factors that lead to successful collaborations.     

Performance of the SNPforID 52 SNP-plex assay in paternity testing

The performance of a multiplex assay with 52 autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) developed for human identification was tested on 124 mother–child–father trios. The typical paternity indices (PIs) were 10⁵–10⁶ for the trios and 10³–10⁴ for the child–father duos. Using the SNP profiles from the randomly selected trios and 700 previously typed individuals, a total of 83,096 comparisons between mother, child and an unrelated man were performed. On average, 9–10 mismatches per comparison were detected. Four mismatches were genetic inconsistencies and 5–6 mismatches were opposite homozygosities. In only two of the 83,096 comparisons did an unrelated man match perfectly to a mother–child duo, and in both cases the PI of the true father was much higher than the PI of the unrelated man. The trios were also typed for 15 short tandem repeats (STRs) and seven variable number of tandem repeats (VNTRs). The typical PIs based on 15 STRs or seven VNTRs were 5–50 times higher than the typical PIs based on 52 SNPs. Six mutations in tandem repeats were detected among the randomly selected trios. In contrast, there was not found any mutations in the SNP loci. The results showed that the 52 SNP-plex assay is a very useful alternative to currently used methods in relationship testing. The usefulness of SNP markers with low mutation rates in paternity and immigration casework is discussed.     

A fast preparation of skeletal materials using enzyme maceration

The current study investigates the removal of soft tissues from mice and rats by the use of three different proteases and one lipase from Novozymes A/S. The results demonstrate the enzyme maceration to be remarkably fast (1-3 h) compared to the traditional warm-water procedure, which requires up to several days. In addition, the enzyme maceration eliminates the odor problem associated with the traditional procedure. It is shown that stirring of the enzyme maceration bath is the main factor which determines the speed of the maceration. For mice, the time required for enzyme maceration can vary from 1 to 8 h depending on the stirring speed. The method investigated here allows preparation of skeletal material in an essentially odorless way within a matter of hours, making the method useful in particular for forensic science, private conservation workshops, and educational purposes.     

The Impact of the European Union on Coalition Formation in a Minority System: The Case of Denmark

Does European Union membership influence coalition patterns in national parliaments? For governments in the Scandinavian countries – with their relatively high share of minority governments requiring external parliamentary support to form parliamentary majorities – the question of ‘coalition management’ is highly relevant. This article provides an empirical test of three central arguments in the Europeanisation literature on the impact of EU membership on national parliaments when political parties pass legislation in the Danish Folketing. The effect of EU content in a law on coalition patterns is compared across policy areas and four electoral periods from 1998 to 2011 encompassing 2,894 laws. The data provide support for the argument that the loss of national agenda‐setting over the legislative process has an impact on coalition patterns in the Danish parliament. It is shown that the coalition patterns on Europeanised legislation are both broader and more stable compared to national, non‐EU‐related legislation. The focus on Europeanisation of legislative coalitions goes beyond previous analysis with an institutional focus, and demonstrates an example of how the EU systematically has an effect on legislative coalition formation in a national parliamentary system.     

Who Should Govern Political Parties? Organizational Values in Norwegian and Danish Political Parties

The article explores party member attitudes towards internal party democracy and party leadership in Danish and Norwegian parties. The focus is on the relationship between party members' public policy values (measured by means of 'old politics' and 'new politics' value dimensions) and their organizational values (i.e. ideas about internal democracy), but the members' educational and activism levels as well as indicators capturing factors specific to individual parties are also applied to explain party members' organizational values. We find that positions on the two policy value dimensions are related to party members' organizational values. But the relationships are not particularly strong, and their signs are contrary to expectations. One explanation may be that the 'new politics' literature draws a misleading picture of the organizational values of New Left and New Right party members – at least in the Danish and Norwegian cases. We also find that the social democratic parties in both countries differ considerably from the other parties in the sense that the dissatisfaction with the leadership was much stronger in these parties.