Battered woman syndrome evidence in the courtroom

The use of battered woman syndrome evidence has been advocated in trials of battered women who assault or kill their abusers. The present article reviews existing legal and psychological literature addressing the use of this form of expert testimony. As the review will indicate, there are, at present, substantial gaps in our knowledge about its scientific status and its impact on legal proceedings. The goal of the article is to highlight some of the central concerns surrounding the use of bettered woman syndrome evidence and to encourage additional research on the subject.Thanks are extended to R. Lalonde for comments on earlier versions of this paper.     

Expert evidence and hearsay

In upholding the admission of expert evidence, some courts have held that hearsay information conveyed via an expert may be admitted as long as the jury is instructed to ignore the facts asserted in the hearsay statements and to use the information only for determining the weight to attribute to the expert's opinion. Results of a mock juror simulation indicated that although hearsay elements conveyed via an expert were perceived as less likely compared to a condition in which the information was independently admitted at trial, it was not completely ignored by the jurors. Further, the findings tended to suggest that the impact of the hearsay on verdict decisions operated primarily by influencing evaluations regarding the likelihood of the hearsay events as opposed to judgments regarding the expert testimony.     

Intellectual Capital and Public Management： A Bibliometric Analysis

Starting from the premise that public management, in the context from the emergent knowledge society, needs new forms to act and new tools to reach its objectives, this paper aims to find evidence of the adoption of the principles of intellectual capital under the public management, by raising scientific articles about the subjects, and aims to select theoretical referential about intellectual capital and public management, by bibliometric analysis. The processes presented 100 constant articles in the final portfolio, available in the data base Web of Science, Science Direct and Scopus. The bibliometric indicators show that the studies were published as from 1969, released by 15 international periodicals, written by 164 authors, used 241 key words related to the constructs of this study. It is believed that the identification of the main references helps the understanding of the foundations of this research field. Additionally, this paper provides many inputs that contribute to the comprehension of the subject at an international level, and that can be utilised in the development of future works.     

Using Social Media to Measure Temporal Ambient Population: Does it Help Explain Local Crime Rates?

A challenge for studies assessing routine activities theory is accounting for the spatial and temporal confluence of offenders and targets given that people move about during the daytime and nighttime. We propose exploiting social media (Twitter) data to construct estimates of the population at various locations at different times of day, and assess whether these estimates help predict the amount of crime during two-hour time periods over the course of the day. We address these questions using crime data for 97,428 blocks in the Southern California region, along with geocoded information on tweets in the region over an eight month period. The results show that this measure of the temporal ambient population helps explain the level of crime in blocks during particular time periods. The use of social media data appear promising for testing various implications of routine activities and crime pattern theories, given their explicit spatial and temporal nature.     

Diverting young offenders from crime in Ireland: the need for more checks and balances on the exercise of police discretion

The Irish police (the Garda Síochána) have been exercising their law enforcement discretion to pursue a diversionary strategy for young offenders since at least 1953. Working in a street environment of low visibility they have managed to expand their traditional law enforcement function into territory more appropriately reserved for courts, social workers and probation officers. This article charts the development of this expansion and examines its current manifestation in the juvenile diversion programme. It argues that the welfare benefits for the young offenders are being purchased at the cost of due process rights, and that there is a need for more custom built accountability checks and balances to strike a better balance in the programme.     

The Recovery and Persistence of Salivary DNA on Human Skin

Abstract: Salivary DNA is encountered in many crimes, such as sexual assaults and murders. In this study, saliva from three male donors was deposited on the skin of three female recipients. The amount of male salivary DNA remaining on the female skin was measured over a 96‐h period using the Quantifiler? Y Human Male DNA Quantification Kit. In eight of the nine experiments, a full male DNA profile matching the donor was obtained even after 96 h. In addition, the study showed that the concentration of salivary DNA varied from donor to donor and from day to day. The efficiency of two recovery methods, wet and dry swabbing and minitaping, was compared. The results indicate the tapelift method gave higher DNA recovery. This study also examined the secondary transfer of salivary DNA from skin to fabrics. Cotton and polyester give higher DNA transfer than leather.     

Validation of powder X-ray diffraction following EN ISO/IEC 17025

Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) is used widely in forensic science laboratories with the main focus of qualitative phase identification. Little is found in literature referring to the topic of validation of PXRD in the field of forensic sciences. According to EN ISO/IEC 17025, the method has to be tested for several parameters. Trueness, specificity, and selectivity of PXRD were tested using certified reference materials or a combination thereof. All three tested parameters showed the secure performance of the method. Sample preparation errors were simulated to evaluate the robustness of the method. These errors were either easily detected by the operator or nonsignificant for phase identification. In case of the detection limit, a statistical evaluation of the signal-to-noise ratio showed that a peak criterion of three sigma is inadequate and recommendations for a more realistic peak criterion are given. Finally, the results of an international proficiency test showed the secure performance of PXRD.     

An eight-year follow-up: Outcome from adolescent compared to adult onset anorexia nervosa

Seventy-five women were traced and reassessed on average eight years after the onset of anorexia nervosa. All patients received treatment and 88% were hospitalized at least once. Comparisons between early (11–15 years; N=35), late (16–18 years; N=24) adolescent and adult (19–27 years; N=14) onset revealed no significant differences in outcome for age at onset. For 70% of adolescent and 42% of adult onset patients the outcome was good, meaning that the weight was within ± 15% of norm with regular cyclical menstruation,17% and 21% had an intermediate, and 9% and 21%, respectively, had a poor outcome, 5.3% had died. Taken together, 59% had physically recovered and were free of any eating disorder. Severity of illness reflected in a low body mass index, excessive exercise, and poor psychosocial functioning at intake were poor prognostic indicators;length of illness and food restriction or bulimia as eating patterns were unrelated to outcome. The observation that all women with chronic anorexia nervosa, and even a third of those who had physically recovered from anorexia nervosa, qualified for one or more psychiatric diagnoses suggests that the psychosocial correlates of anorexia nervosa require further study.Supported by grant MH ROI35585-01A1.Received an M.D.-Ph.D. degree from Albert-Ludwig University in Freiburg, Germany. Research interests have been depressive disorders, eating disorders, in particular anorexia nervosa, and more recently women's health.Received M.D. degree from the University of Illinois in Chicago, Illinois. Research interest is in preventive medicine.