Crossing Boundaries: Nineteenth-Century Domestic Relations law and the Merger of Family and legal History

This essay argues for the need to study the legal history of the American family. It does so by combining a critique of secondary literature in family and legal history with examples from nineteenth-century domestic relations law. These examples, drawn from family law doctrines on seduction under the cover of a marriage promise, runaway marriages, and bastardy, are used to indicate the benefits of adding a sociocultural dimension to legal history and legal and institutional dimensions to family history. Three main themes in the history of nineteenth-century domestic relations law are developed to make these points: the law's particular fabric of issues, its distribution of authorship, and its chronological development, These themes suggest why a full understanding of the legal history of the American family requires crossing the boundaries between legal and family history.     

Violence in Police Families: Work-Family Spillover

This article uses a path model to examine the relationship between violence exposure and domestic violence among police officers with the expectation that the relationships would be both direct and mediated. The mediation factors included burnout, authoritarian spillover, alcohol use, and department withdrawal. The model was tested through an analysis of data collected from 413 officers. Four mediation chains were identified; the most powerful of these was burnout and authoritarian spillover. Suggestions for future research include understanding violence in the context of unique workplace cultures, classifying violence types, and clarifying how this population defines violence and control.     

Deliberation,Democratic Decision-Making and Internal Political Efficacy

Empirical research into the possible positive consequences of deliberation increasingly reveals that there is a complex relationship between deliberation and its effects on citizens. In this experimental study I examine the relationship between internal political efficacy and one type of deliberation: deliberative decision-making. I also test whether different structures of decision-making mediate between deliberation and internal political efficacy. The data suggest that deliberative decision-making had no direct effect on a global measure of internal political efficacy. Participants in face-to-face deliberative decision-making, though, had higher scores on a situation-specific measure of internal political efficacy than participants who only voted. The structures of decision-making had no effect on either measure of internal political efficacy. These results support claims that deliberation will not necessarily lead to direct, positive effects on citizens internal political efficacy, but they also highlight the likelihood that face-to-face deliberation can lead citizens to feel more competent in their deliberative abilities.     

Appearance of chemical burns resulting from the washing of a deceased body with bleach

The authors report on a case of postmortem washing of a body with bleach. An adult female victim was found nude in an alleyway with both hands removed in the City of Westminster, CO. Cause of death was attributed to severe blunt force trauma to the head. The victim had been dumped in the alleyway within 7 h of discovery. Evidence discovered at the crime scene and autopsy indicated that the murder and subsequent washing of the body with bleach occurred at a secondary location(s). The victim was wet to the touch, presenting a strong odor of bleach. Several "ribbon"-like burn patterns were observed on the victim's back and upper thighs. These burn marks were replicated by dowsing a deceased pig with an over-the-counter concentration of bleach.     

Acute pancreatitis presenting as sudden, unexpected death: an autopsy-based study of 27 cases

Acute pancreatitis represents a spectrum of disease, ranging from a mild, transitory illness to a severe, rapidly progressive hemorrhagic form, with massive necrosis and mortality rates of up to 24%. The reported incidence of acute pancreatitis diagnosed first at clinicopathologic autopsy ranges between 30% and 42%. To better describe outpatient fatalities due to acute pancreatitis that present as sudden, unexpected death, we retrospectively reviewed the autopsy files at the Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Hamburg, Germany, from 2000-2004. Individual cases were analyzed for sex, age, race, circumstances of death, social background of the deceased and previous medical history, seasonal occurrence of the disease, blood alcohol concentration at the time of death, body mass index, autopsy findings, histopathology, and etiology of acute pancreatitis. Among the 6178 autopsies carried out during the 5-year period evaluated, there were 27 cases of acute pancreatitis that presented as sudden, unexpected death. In all cases, the diagnosis was first made at autopsy. The male:female ratio was 1.7:1 and the mean age was 52 years (range, 30-91 years). Etiologies of acute pancreatitis included alcohol (n=19), gall stones (n=2), other identified etiologic factors (n=3), and idiopathic (n=3). Complications of acute pancreatitis included lung edema and/or acute respiratory distress syndrome, peritonitis, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and sepsis. At least 20 subjects (74%) had lived isolated, with no social contacts. Contrary to the clinical observations of a clear seasonal variation in the onset of acute pancreatitis, we found no correlation between death due to acute pancreatitis and a specific month or season. Many prior studies have suggested that the majority of deaths in severe acute pancreatitis occur in the late phase of the disease as a result of pancreatic sepsis. Conversely, in the present study, the majority of affected individuals died during the very early phase of the disease. While gallstones represent the main etiologic factor in most larger clinical series, biliary etiology seems to play only a minor role in outpatient deaths undergoing medicolegal autopsies. Data derived from medicolegal autopsy studies should be included in future population-based studies of acute pancreatitis.