The Impact on Juror Verdicts of Judicial Instruction to Disregard Inadmissible Evidence: A Meta-Analysis

The effect on juror verdicts of judicial instructions to disregard inadmissible evidence was evaluated using meta-analysis. One hundred seventy-five hypothesis tests from 48 studies with a combined 8,474 participants were examined. Results revealed that inadmissible evidence (IE) has a reliable effect on verdicts consistent with the content of the IE. Judicial instruction to ignore the inadmissible evidence does not effectively eliminate IE impact. However, if judges provide a rationale for a ruling of inadmissibility, juror compliance may be increased. Contested evidence ruled admissible accentuates that information, resulting in a significant impact on verdicts. Suggestions for how the courts may mitigate the impact of inadmissible evidence more effectively are discussed.     

Moral authority and reformation religion: On charisma and the origins of modernity

The research for this paper was made possible in large part by a grant from the Jerusalem Center for Anthropological Studies. I would like to express here my appreciation to S. N. Eisenstadt for his invaluable suggestions and comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Patterns of influence and response in abusing and nonabusing families

Behaviors of influence and response during a conflict negotiation task were examined in eight physically child abusing, substance abusing families in which the father was the primary abuser and eight demographically matched nonabusing families. Abusing fathers displayed more coercive patterns of influencing behavior and more negative patterns of response to other family members, including both mothers and children. Fewer differences were observed between mothers in the abusing and nonabusing families or in the children's behavior; however, mothers in the abusing families criticized their husbands more and abused children exhibited less agreement and more criticism toward their fathers. In support of Patterson's theory, abusing families exhibited relatively more reciprocated sequences of criticism and relatively fewer reciprocated sequences of agreement as compared to nonabusing families. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding interaction in child abusing families.     

The struggle over Turkey’s Il?su Dam: domestic and international security linkages

While on the surface the Turkish state appears to have asymmetrical power vis-à-vis downstreamers and local societal opponents, and therefore, the ability to shape basin politics, domestic, basin and international protest over the ‘securitised’ Il?su Dam in Turkey proved more decisive in that respect. A cornerstone of the GAP (Güneydo?u Anadolu Projesi, Southeast Anatolia Project) multi-dam project to harness the water from the Euphrates and Tigris, the dam project elicited successful resistance from Turkey’s downstream neighbours, social and environmental NGOs and professionals targeting the international donors and contractors. On the basis of document research and interviews, this article investigates which factors opened up the space for politicising the project, and how this politicisation played out in both the domestic and international domain. The link between the securitised (where water is almost by default a security issue) and non-securitised spheres of hydropolitical decision-making (where it is not) proved crucial to the success of the anti-dam opposition.     

Fundamental studies of bloodstain formation and characteristics

A detailed understanding of blood droplet impact dynamics and stain formation is an essential prerequisite to the interpretation of both individual bloodstains and spatter patterns. The current literature on theoretical models for the spreading and splashing of liquid drops on surfaces relevant to the forensic context of bloodstain formation has been reviewed. These models have been evaluated for a paper substrate using experimental data obtained as function of droplet size, impact velocity and angle. It is shown that for perpendicular impact there are fairly simple mathematical models for the spreading diameter and the number of scallops or spines formed around the stain though these have quite limited ranges of validity in their basic form. In particular, predictions for the diameter are best for small droplets impacting at high velocity and the number of spines saturates for higher impact velocities. In the case of spreading, a modification to the energy conservation model is found to provide excellent agreement with experimental stain diameters across a wide range of impact velocities. For non-perpendicular impact, the width of stains is found to depend principally on the normal component of impact velocity and may be predicted by an appropriate modification to the expression for the perpendicular case. Limitations in the calculation of impact angle from the stain aspect ratio are identified and a theoretical basis for the prediction of spines around an elliptical stain is proposed. Some key issues for future research are identified which include a systematic, quantitative study of the effect of surface properties on bloodstain formation.