Professional ethics and professional morality in the assessment of competence for execution

Four psychological perspectives need to be considered in response to the Richard Bonnie outlook on competence for execution. The first perspective is the degree to which the task itself is ambiguous and thus allows individual clinicians' values to leak through. The second perspective is that prisoners' choices to opt for execution instead of appeal are murky and often irrational. The third perspective is that even rational decisions for execution instead of appeal are often not founded on informed judgments, in part because of the situational influences of living on death row. The fourth perspective is that clinicians' judgments to participate in such legal-psychological activities are not only a matter of individual morality but also part of evolving professional ethics.     

Money and politics in a small open economy

A time series analysis indicates monetary growth and the Gallup Poll in Canada are systematically related at ‘electoral cycle’ periodicities (5 to 20 quarters) under flexible exchange rates, and demonstrates the absence of an electoral component in Canadian monetary growth under fixed rates. These results confirm empirically a widely accepted extension of the Mundell-Fleming argument that monetary policy is effective only under flexible rates, which to my knowledge has not before been directly investigated: international constraints on the small open economy under fixed rates lead to the abandonment of monetary policy as an active instrument in electoral politics.     

Reactive Responses: The Complementary Role of Federal and State Courts

The recent revival of state constitutional law has contributedsignificantly to the development of a dynamic judicial federalism.While interaction between federal and state courts is hardlynovel, acknowledgments of reciprocity have occurred more frequentlythan in the past. The Burger Courts receptivity to state judicialactivism inaugurated an era marked by creativity as well ascooperation. Thus far, major departures from established practiceshave been limited to a readily identifiable and recurring numberof state courts. All the same, the case studies included inthis article range across a variety of factual contexts andexplore an impressive array of links, both explicit and implied,between the federal and state courts. A disquieting new requirement,introduced as the result of a 1983 Supreme Court decision, exactsof state judges an unambiguous declaration of reliance on independentstate grounds as the price of ensuring federal nonintervention.Whether judicial federalism will continue to flourish withinso confining a framework remains problematic.     

The Southern Presidential Primary: Regional Intentions With National Implications

Fifteen southern and border states have decided to hold presidentialprimaries around the second Tuesday in March 1988. Democraticparty reformers have backed this regional primary in hopes thatit will advantage politically moderate candidates for the presidency.This article discusses how enactment of the southern primarycame about and why this reform seems unlikely to achieve theintentions of the reformers. Four major criticisms of the reformsare discussed: 1) Republicans, not Democrats, could benefit;2) the importance of earlier primaries and caucuses—Iowaand New Hampshire in particular—could grow dramatically;3) the desired moderating influence on Democratic candidatescould be frustrated by plurality wins; and 4) the southern regionalprimary is not southern or regional but national.