Combined homicide-suicide in Galveston County

Combined homicide-suicides have been classified based on the psychopathology of the perpetrator and the nature of the relationship between perpetrator and victim(s). To further understand the nature of this tragic phenomenon and to test the validity and practicality of a previously suggested classification system, investigators systematically collected data on all combined homicide-suicide events that occurred in Galveston County, Texas over a continuous 18-year period (n = 20). The most common psychopathological finding for perpetrators was high serum alcohol levels that suggested intoxication. Most combined homicide-suicides fell into one of the relational categories and most of these, as predicted, were of the consortial type, possessive subtype. As expected, due to the small sample size, the less common types of combined homicide-suicide were not represented in this sample.     

Harvesting experience: A reappraisal of the U.S. Climate Change Action Plan

For mitigating climate change and adapting to whatever impacts we cannot avoid, there are no politically feasible alternatives to improvements in the U.S. Climate Change Action Plan at this time or for the foreseeable future. Yet improvements in the Action Plan have been obstructed by the diversion of attention and other resources to negotiating a binding international agreement, to developing a predictive understanding of global change, and to documenting the failure of the Action Plan to meet its short-term goal for the reduction of aggregate greenhouse gas emissions. Continuous improvements depend upon reallocating attention and other resources to the Action Plan, and more specifically, to the many small-scale policies that have already succeeded by climate change and no regrets criteria under the Action Plan. Sustaining the effort over the long term depends on harvesting experience from these small-scale successes for diffusion and adaptation elsewhere on a voluntary basis.     

McCloskey versus McIntyre: Implications of Contested Elections in a Federal Democracy

The 1984 election in the Eighth Congressional District of Indianaproduced an unclear result. Election night totals gave the victoryto the Democratic incumbent Francis McCloskey. Subsequent recountsby state and local officials gave the victory to RepublicanRichard McIntyre. A further recount by the U.S. House of Representativesreturned the victory to McCloskey by a four-vote margin. Partisanshipwas important in all phases of deciding the outcome of the election,in part, because unclear rules and inconsistent counting procedurescreated ample opportunities for partisan interpretations ofelectoral rules. This contested election raised questions aboutthe legitimacy of the outcomes produced by various countingrules and about the problems of assuring majority rule wherecounting rules are inconsistent. The election also raised questionsabout the propriety of U.S. House intervention into local electoraladministration and about the roles of local, state, and federalofficials in deciding the outcome of a federal contested election.     

Event Studies and the Law: Part II: Empirical Studies of Corporate Law

This article is the second part of a review of the event studymethodology, which has proved to be one of the most successfuluses of econometrics in policy analysis. In this part we focuson the methodology's application to corporate law and corporategovernance issues. Event studies have played an important rolein the making of corporate law and in corporate law scholarship.The reason for this input is twofold. First, there is a matchbetween the methodology and subject matter: the goal of corporatelaw is to increase shareholder wealth, and event studies providea metric for measurement of the impact upon stock prices ofpolicy decisions. Second, because the participants in corporatelaw debates share the objective of corporate law, to adopt policiesthat enhance shareholder wealth, their disagreements are overthe means to achieve that end. Hence, the discourse can be empiricallyinformed. The article concludes by sketching the methodology'suse in evaluating the economic effects of regulation. Whileevent studies' usefulness for policy analysis is by now familiarin the corporate law setting, we hope that our two-part reviewwill suggest appropriate applications to other fields of law.     

Constitutional democracy and the legitimacy of judicial review

It has long been argued that the institution of judicial review is incompatible with democratic institutions. This criticism usually relies on a procedural conception of democracy, according to which democracy is essentially a form of government defined by equal political rights and majority rule. I argue that if we see democracy not just as a form of government, but more basically as a form of sovereignty, then there is a way to conceive of judicial review as a legitimate democratic institution. The conception of democracy that stems from the social contract tradition of Locke, Rousseau, Kant and Rawls, is based in an ideal of the equality, independence, and original political jurisdiction of all citizens. Certain equal basic rights, in addition to equal political rights, are a part of democratic sovereignty. In exercising their constituent power at the level of constitutional choice, free and equal persons could choose judicial review as one of the constitutional mechanisms for protecting their equal basic rights. As such, judicial review can be seen as a kind of shared precommitment by sovereign citizens to maintaining their equal status in the exercise of their political rights in ordinary legislative procedures. I discuss the conditions under which judicial review is appropriate in a constitutional democracy. This argument is contrasted with Hamilton's traditional argument for judicial review, based in separation of powers and the nature of judicial authority. I conclude with some remarks on the consequences for constitutional interpretation.I am indebted to John Rawls and Burton Dreben for their helpful advice and their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.