Distress resulting from perceivers' own intimate partner violence experiences predicts culpability attributions toward a battered woman on trial for killing her abuser: a path model

Intimate partner violence (IPV) constitutes the majority of assaults against women in the United States, and greater than one third of female homicide victims are murdered by an intimate partner. In a small percentage of cases, battered women kill their abusers, and evidence of battering and its effects may be used to support a plea of self-defense in these cases. Prior research has shown that culpability attributions toward battered women who have killed their abusers are influenced by perceiver variables, including gender. The present study expands on this research by examining the influence of psychological distress resulting from perceivers' own IPV experiences--and the mechanisms of this influence--on their culpability attributions toward a battered woman defendant. Female undergraduates in the present sample (N = 154) read a vignette, adapted from an actual criminal case about a battered woman who had killed her abuser. Data supported a hypothesized path model, wherein participants reporting greater psychological distress resulting from IPV perpetrated against them perceived themselves more similar to the defendant, in turn empathized with her to a greater extent, and, in turn, attributed less legal culpability to her. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Reconfiguring the Politics–Law Relationship in the Integration Project through Conflicts–Law Constitutionalism

This paper argues that the relationship between law and politics must be reconfigured within the European Union. Dissecting recent crises in economic, social and political organisation within Europe with reference to the three ‘fictitious’ commodities of Karl Polanyi, we find that law in Europe has contributed to de‐legalisation, de‐socialisation and disenfranchisement. Moving on to review the potential for law to respond to crisis through new paradigms of conflict resolution as suggested by Ralf Dahrendorf, we find that the steering capacity of law is nevertheless limited if it fails to establish a sustaining relationship with politics. Our conclusions are modest: conflict–law constitutionalism cannot solve Europe's many crises. However, it does represent a new paradigm of law within which relations between European law and European politics might be re‐established—a vital step to overcoming crisis.     

Advances in Biometric Encryption: Taking Privacy by Design from Academic Research to Deployment

An organization should address ethical issues including privacy before deploying biometric systems. Threats to informational privacy rights related to potential data misuse, function creep, and the data linkage of personal information contained in diverse databases makes possible such unintended consequences as surveillance, profiling, and discrimination. Unlike passwords, biometric data are unique, irrevocable, and variable. Biometric encryption (BE) is highlighted as a prominent example of Privacy by Design, where privacy is embedded as a core functionality in the biometric system. BE binds a digital key to (or extracts the key from) the biometrics. Earlier technical challenges to this new technology, as well as recent advances, are presented. Lastly, an overview is provided of an application using facial recognition (FR) in a watch list scenario, known to be the first and largest successful deployment of BE using FR, in a casino context.     

John Gardner,in memoriam

Criminal Law and Philosophy -     

An Exercise in Legal Honesty: Rewriting the Court of Justice and the Bundesverfassungsgericht

This article contains an urgent plea for the re‐establishment of legal honesty in Europe. European law is a victim of European economic crisis. The emergence of the concept of conditionality within national and European jurisprudence, or the judicial imposition of a market discipline upon national budgets, is also a part of a chronicle foretold given in the face of the volatile power of international finance markets. Yet, in rewriting the judgements given by the Court of Justice in the case of Thomas Pringle and by the German Constitutional Court in its matching jurisprudence on the European Stability Mechanism, this article seeks to overcome the destruction of constitutionality within Europe, the foreclosure of a European space for the politics of alternatives and the condemning of individual Europeans to lasting suffering within a perpetual austerity regime.     

Background Levels of Salivary-α-amylase Plus Foreign DNA in Cases of Oral Intercourse: a Female Perspective

Saliva plus DNA from a suspect is commonly encountered in sexual assault cases on bodily swabs. However, without background knowledge, the weight of this evidence is unknown. It may indicate the presence of saliva resulting from cunnilingus, or it may represent indirect transfer. In this study, females who refrained from cunnilingus donated 43 items of underwear and 19 vaginal swabs. The samples were subjected to Phadebas^®, RSID^™-Saliva and mRNA profiling and were subsequently DNA-profiled to determine the prevalence of background saliva in the female population. The results report that 15.8% of females who refrained from cunnilingus were positive for saliva and a further 10.5% also had DNA from unknown source(s). These findings of the rate of indirect transfer were evaluated with the Bayesian approach, and it was found that the evidence of saliva plus a high foreign DNA source adds moderately strong support to the allegation of cunnilingus.