Similar Facts in Civil Cases

This essay evaluates the recent restatement in O’Brienv Chief Constable of South Wales Police of the law on similarfacts in civil proceedings. The two-stage approach propoundedin O’Brien contains a number of conceptual problems. Apparentsimplicity was achieved by avoiding fundamental issues underlyingthis area. Prior to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, judges recognizedthat the common law similar facts rule had a role to play inboth civil and criminal trials; but they gave the rule a widerexclusionary scope in criminal than in civil cases. Adoptionof a moral perspective helps to explain this state of affairs.The rule, so it will be argued, protects the legitimacy of trialdeliberation by forbidding reliance on an assumption that disrespectsthe moral autonomy of the person whose conduct is being judged.This moral objection can arise in civil cases; but it arisesmore frequently and usually with greater force in criminal proceedings.Hence, while there is a need to reserve some judicial powerto disallow proof of similar incidents in the civil context,there is usually less reason for the exercise of that powerin civil cases than at criminal trials.     

Using the good cop/bad cop profile with the MMPI-2

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) has been widely used in a variety of ways to screen candidates for law enforcement positions. This study extends the use of the MMPI Good Cop/Bad Cop (GC/BC) profile (Blau, Super, & Brady, 1993) to the MMPI-2. The MMPI-2 profiles of 39 veteran police officers were used to predict their performance (No Apparent Problems, Borderline, or Serious Problems Possible), and these predictions were compared with supervisors’ ratings of the officers’ actual performance. The MMPI-2 predictions were accurate for 46% of the officers, a rate that was significantly better than chance (p=.024). Based on the current data, the best selection outcome would be obtained by accepting officers whose MMPI-2 profiles place them in the No Apparent Problems or Borderline groups, and rejecting officers whose profiles suggest Serious Problems Possible. This could be accomplished simply by rejecting any officer who obtained a score above 65T on any of the clinical scales. This selection strategy would have resulted in the acceptance of 22 officers, 19 of whom were highly rated by their supervisors, and the rejection of 17 officers, 11 of whom were rated as borderline or poorer by their supervisors. It would also result in the erroneous rejection of 6 officers who were highly rated by supervisors. AUTHOR NOTE: An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1994 annual meeting of the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology, in Roswell, New Mexico. The authors wish to thank Jim Herndon, Ph.D., for this comments on this study.     

Belgium's Anti-Sect War

Since the suicide—homicide of 53 members of the Order of the Solar Temple in 1994 and the gas attempt by Aum Shinrikyo in Tokyo's subway in 1995, a number of European states have decided to fight against sects. France and Belgium are in the forefront of this battle. Both countries have set up official observatories of sects and state agencies involving various ministries to combat them. Preventive policies targeting sects are being carried out. In Belgium, the Anthroposophic Society, a philosophical movement listed as 1 of 189 sects suspected of being dangerous, has sued one federal entity that printed unfounded accusations against their movement in a widely distributed brochure against sects. The same Anthoposophic Society has also petitioned the Court of Arbitration to have the law establishing an observatory of sects annuled. This report deals with both legal actions.     

Partner Violence Entrapment Scale: Development and Psychometric Testing

This article describes the development and testing of the psychometric properties of the Partner Violence Entrapment Scale (PVES), an instrument that evaluates the women’s perceived reasons for staying in violent partner relationships. After initial pilot testing, the scale was administered to 213 Spanish women who were victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). An exploratory factor analysis identified six factors: Socio-Economic Problems, Attachment and Fear of Loneliness, Blaming Oneself and Resignation, Impact on Children, Fear of Harm and Worry for the Partner, and Feelings of Confusion. Discriminant validity was established by demonstrating associations between PVES factors and socio-demographic, clinical and abuse variables. The scale appears to be a useful assessment tool for social and clinical settings. Its factor structure, reliability, and validity need to be replicated in other populations and samples.     

Mediating Effects of Existential and Religious Well-Being Among Abused,Suicidal African American Women

Intimate partner violence (IPV), an international public health matter, is linked to psychological distress including suicidal behavior. Despite the noted sequelae associated with IPV, many individuals display resilience in the face of IPV exposure. This study examines two potential protective factors in the IPV-suicidal ideation link, namely existential and religious well-being, in a sample of African American women. Low-income, African American, female suicide attempters who were abused by a partner within the previous year (N?=?111) were administered the Conflicts Tactics Scale-2, Spiritual Well-Being Scale, and Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation. Mediational models testing indirect effects through the bootstrapping method revealed that the total effect of IPV on suicidal ideation was positive and significant, confirming suicidal ideation as a consequential outcome of IPV among African American women. This effect was mediated by existential well-being; however, religious well-being was not a significant mediator, suggesting that existential well-being serves a unique protective role in the IPV-suicidal ideation relation. The results provide additional support for the well-known positive effects of existential well-being on mental health among African American samples. Culturally-informed, meaning-making interventions to enhance existential well-being appear to be effective in reducing suicidal ideation in this population.     

Why Tolerate Conscience?

In Why Tolerate Religion?, Brian Leiter argues against the special legal status of religion, claiming that religion should not be the only ground for exemptions to the law and that this form of protection should be, in principle, available for the claims of secular conscience as well. However, in the last chapter of his book, he objects to a universal regime of exemptions for both religious and secular claims of conscience, highlighting the practical and moral flaws associated with it. We believe that Leiter identifies a genuine and important contemporary legal and philosophical problem. We find much to admire in his reasoning. However, we raise questions about two claims that are crucial for his argument. The first claim is that it is not religion as such, but conscience that deserves toleration and respect. The second claim is that respect for religion and conscience demands ‘principled toleration’ but does not entail stronger policies of legal exemptions. Against the first claim, we argue that Leiter does not successfully distinguish religious belief from secular conscience and morality; and he does not explain why secular conscience (which shares many of religious conscience’s epistemic features) deserves respect. Against the second claim, we argue that the most promising theories of legal exemptions are not classical theories of liberal toleration.     

Psychometric Properties of a Brief Instrument to Assess Perceptions of Injustice Associated with Debilitating Health and Mental Health Conditions

The present study examined the psychometric properties of a shortened and simplified version of the Injustice Experience Questionnaire (IEQ). The instructional set of the original IEQ was modified to make it better suited to the context of debilitating health and mental health conditions that do not necessarily arise as a result of injury. The number of items was reduced from 12 to 5, and the response scale was simplified. The Injustice Experiences Questionnaire – Short Form (IEQ-SF) was administered to individuals diagnosed with a chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) condition (N?=?88) or major depressive disorder (MDD) (N?=?87). The internal consistency of the IEQ-SF was acceptable. The IEQ-SF was significantly correlated with measures of pain severity, depressive symptom severity and disability in both samples. Individuals with MDD scored higher on the IEQ-SF than individuals with MSK. The IEQ-SF was shown to be sensitive to treatment-related reductions in perceived injustice. Preliminary analyses suggest that the IEQ-SF is a reliable and valid measure of disability-related injustice perceptions associated with debilitating health and mental health conditions.     

Does media freedom improve government effectiveness? A comparative cross-country analysis

Government effectiveness could be explained by the level of well-informed electorate members, who use the press to learn more about politicians and public servants. Thus, a free press may improve citizens’ accessibility to this information, which in turn will make it more difficult for politicians and public servants to cover up or get away with corrupt behaviour, so the quality of the government could be affected by the media freedom. Accordingly, the main aim of this paper is to determine the effect of the freedom of the press on government effectiveness, considering additionally environmental, institutional, and political characteristics as factors that could determine the level of government effectiveness. To achieve this aim, we examined 202 central governments and compared them across countries using the World Bank data set of Governance Indicators for 2002–2008. The results show that the media, the organizational environment, and political characteristics may be determinants of the level of government effectiveness, taking countries’ economic development into account.     

Study of the adhesion of explosive residues to the finger and transfer to clothing and luggage

It is important to understand the extent of transfer of explosive particles to different surfaces in order to better evaluate potential cross-contamination by explosives in crowded security controls such as those at airports. This work investigated the transfer of nine explosive residues (ANFO, dynamite, black powder, TNT, HMTD, PETN, NH₄NO₃, KNO₃, NaClO₃) through fingerprints from one surface to another. First, the extent of adhesion of explosive residues from different surfaces to the bare finger, nitrile and latex gloves was studied. Then, the transfer of explosive residues from one surface to another through fingerprints was investigated. Cotton fabric (hereinafter referred to as cotton) as clothing material and polycarbonate plastic (hereinafter referred to as polycarbonate) as luggage material were chosen for the experiments. These surfaces containing explosive particles were imaged using a reflex camera before and after the particles were transferred. Afterwards the images were processed in MATLAB where pixels corresponding to explosive residues were quantified. Results demonstrated that transfer of explosive residues frequently occurred with certain differences among materials. Generally, the amount of explosive particles adhered to the finger decreased in the following order: skin>latex>nitrile, while the transfer of particles from the finger to another surface was the opposite. The adhesion of explosive residues from polycarbonate to the finger was found to be better compared to cotton, while the amount of particles transferred to cotton was higher.     

Court Sentencing Patterns for Environmental Crimes: Is There a “Green” Gap in Punishment?

Objectives

This study examines sentencing patterns for environmental crimes and tests the assumption that “green” offenders receive more lenient treatment from criminal courts than non-environmental offenders.

Methods

We present two sets of analyses. First, we present an empirical portrait of environmental felony offenses convicted in a single state (Florida) over a fifteen-year period and the resulting criminal sanctions. Second, we use a precision matching analysis to assess whether environmental offenders receive more lenient treatment when compared to non-environmental offenders with the same characteristics and offense severity scores.

Results

Findings indicate that an overall small percentage of felony convictions in state courts stem from environmental crimes. We also find that punishments for environmental crimes are more lenient than sanctions assigned to comparable non-environmental offenses when the environmental crime is ecological, but that punishments are sometimes harsher when the environmental crime involves animals.

Conclusions

The findings provide general support for the argument that courts and other formal institutions of social control treat environmental crimes more leniently than non-environmental crimes. This paper also raises important questions about citizen and state actors’ perceptions of crimes against the environment and, more generally, about the ways in which theories of court sentencing behaviors apply to environmental crime sanctioning decisions.