Fear of Reversal as an Explanation of Lower Court Compliance

Lower courts in the United States are generally responsive to specific precedents and trends in the decisionmaking of their judicial superiors. In this article, we ask why. We test one popular explanation—that compliance can be attributed to judges' fear of having their decisions reversed—through an analysis of search and seizure cases decided in the U.S. Courts of Appeals between 1961 and 1990. Since the Supreme Court cannot reverse a decision unless it agrees to review it, we ask whether circuit judges are more likely to decide as the Supreme Court would be expected to when they face cases that are otherwise more likely to be reviewed by the Court. Finding that they are not, we conclude that fear of reversal cannot account for widespread circuit court compliance in these cases, nor, presumably, more generally. More broadly, our findings point to the importance of factors apart from supervisors and the threat of sanctions in determining subordinates' compliance.     

Physical match of fragmented bullets

The technique of physical match, which is widely used with materials such as plastic and glass, is applied to fragmented bullets for determination of common origin. The more conventional method, of tool marks comparison, is later used to connect the bullet with a firearm.     

Clinical applications of hair testing for drugs of abuse--the Canadian experience

During the last 2 decades there has been a substantial increase in illicit drug consumption in North America. It has been repeatedly shown that the personal history of drug use is far from being accurate. Fearing legal consequences and embarrassment of admitted illicit substance use, most users tend to deny or, to under-report illicit drug consumption. These facts have stressed an urgent need for a biological marker which does not lose its sensitivity within a few days after the end of exposure and which may yield a cumulative reflection of long term exposure to illicit drugs. Hair analysis has emerged as such a marker. A variety of illicit and medicinal compounds have been shown to be incorporated into hair including trace metals, barbiturates, amphetamines, opiates, phencyclidine, cocaine, nicotine and cannabis. Hair analysis for drugs of abuse provides long-term information on an individual's drug use; its window of detection is limited only by the length of the hair and typically, ranges from a week to several months. After establishing and validating several hair tests during the last decade, we have analyzed over 1000 hair samples for different drugs of abuse. We used RIA for screening and GC-MS for confirmation of positive results. The aim of this report is to illustrate the diagnostic usefulness of hair testing in different age groups (newborns, children, adults) and circumstances: (criminal cases, athletes, child custody cases, etc.).     

Fatal child neglect in East Germany 1 January 1985 to 2 October 1990. Results of a multicenter study

No reliable data are available on cases of lethal child neglect in the area of the former German Democratic Republic. In a multicenter study we therefore examined the police and court records for such cases occurring in the period 1 January 1985 to 2 October 1990 in the entire area of the former German Democratic Republic. RESULTS: A total of 9 cases were reported to the study center. This does not include undetected cases, whose number, though indeterminate, is probably small due to the general obligation to perform autopsies on all children dying before their 16 birthday. Just over half of all victims were less than one year old, the oldest was 3 1/2 years old. Starvation and severe dehydration were by far the most common causes of death; in half of cases these occurred in combination with hypothermia. Most often mother killed their children by neglect, either alone or together with the victim's father. In the majority of cases no close bond existed between the parents and the child. Seventy percent of the perpetrators were chronic alcoholics. All 10 of the perpetrators were sentenced to imprisonment for periods ranging from one year to life long. Mitigating circumstances were presented at the sentencing phase of the trial on behalf of 20% of those convicted. The experience of legal medical and pathological institutes in the former German Democratic Republic underscores the need to perform an autopsy on all deceased infants and young children. Only this can ensure that no cases of lethal child neglect are overlooked.