Bill of Sale Lending: Reforming a ‘Toxic’ Form of Credit

The Bills of Sale Acts were enacted in Victorian times as a form of secured credit whereby ‘goods’ owned by a borrower could be assigned under the bill of sale to a lender who would have title to the goods transferred to him. The lender would then allow the borrower to retain possession of the goods in exchange for instalment payments with interest. In the twenty‐first century these bills are most commonly used as ‘logbook loans’ for vehicles with extortionate interest rates and very little protection for individual consumers. This article examines the operational background to the Bill of Sale Acts. It focuses upon particular concerns for consumers and businesses and provides critique of the registration process before examining the proposals and consultations for reform currently before the Law Commission.     

Prospects for health impact assessment in the United States: new and improved environmental impact assessment or something different?

Health impact assessment (HIA) has been advanced as a means of bringing potential health impacts to the attention of policy makers, particularly in sectors where health impacts may not otherwise be considered. This article examines lessons for HIA in the United States from the related and relatively well-developed field of environmental impact assessment (EIA). We reviewed the EIA literature and conducted twenty phone interviews with EIA professionals. Successes of EIA cited by respondents included integration of environmental goals into decision making, improved planning, and greater transparency and public involvement. Reported shortcomings included the length and complexity of EIA documents, limited and adversarial public participation, and an emphasis on procedure over substance. Presently, EIAs consider few, if any, health outcomes. Respondents differed on the prospects for HIA. Most agreed that HIA could contribute to EIA in several areas, including assessment of cumulative impacts and impacts to environmental justice. Reasons given for not incorporating HIA into EIA were uncertainties about interpreting estimated health impacts, that EIA documents would become even longer and more complicated, and that HIA would gain little from the procedural and legal emphasis in EIA. We conclude that for HIA to advance, whether as part of or separate from EIA, well-formulated methodologies need to be developed and tested in real-world situations. When possible, HIA should build on the methods that have been utilized successfully in EIA. The most fruitful avenue is demonstration projects that test, refine, and demonstrate different methods and models to maximize their utility and acceptance.     

Ranking economic liberty across countries

We have constructed a number of summary indexes of economic liberty based on principal component and hedonic weighting techniques. While overall these indexes are related to each other in a statistical sense, there are sufficient differences among them to impact the rankings of the individual countries. Because the liberty indicators currently available for use are fairly coarse, the differences that these weighting techniques yield in the summary liberty indexes are understated. As research on liberty yields finer measures of the liberty indicators, the choice of the weighting technique will become more crucial in defining an overall measure of economic liberty. As Table 3 indicates, the simple overall ranking index we created summarizes the information content of all the other indexes (based on hedonic, data variance, etc. rationale) and appears to be very robust with respect to all of them. In addition, all the rankings indicate that economic growth and RGDP are positively correlated with the level of economic liberty within a nation.     

A Narrative Approach to the Practice of Mediation

Thinking in narrative terms is proving useful in a number of disciplines. Such thinking has already contributed to a growing body of work in the family therapy field. Here, we seek to demonstrate the usefulness and applicability of the ideas developed by Michael White and David Epston (among others) to the practice of mediation. Distinctions are drawn from the problem-solving approach with regard to both basic theoretical assumptions and method. A transcribed mediation scenario is used to illustrate and comment on the techniques of narrative mediation in action.     

The tools to understand: community as co-researcher on culture-specific protective factors for Alaska Natives

A collaborative research process engaging Alaska Native communities in the study of protective factors in Alaska Native sobriety and the design of a preventative intervention using its findings is described. Study 1 was discovery oriented qualitative research whose objectives were identification of protective factors and development of a heuristic model. Study 2 involved quantitative survey methods to develop and test ameasure of protective factors identified by the qualitative study. Empirical data from these studies is presented, and the role of Alaska Native co-researchers who did not possess specialist research training is described in the design and implementation of the study, interpretation of findings, and design of the intervention model and tools. Benefits that emerged from co-researcher involvement in this process, to the community and to the co-researchers themselves, are described.     

The effects of latent print processing on questioned documents produced by office machine systems utilizing inkjet technology and toner

Counterfeiting of currency and identity documents, death threats, illegitimate business transactions, and terrorist-related activities are some examples of the types of crimes that often involve documents produced from printers and copiers. Although standard protocol typically requires a questioned document (QD) examination prior to latent print (LP) processing, occasionally, items of evidence may be submitted for a QD examination following the application of a series chemicals utilized in the development of latent fingerprints. In such cases, the forensic examiner must take into account any previous treatments prior to initiating an examination on documents produced with a printer or copier. This study was devised to examine the effects of a latent print development technique [ninhydrin, physical developer, and a bleach enhancer] on the physical and chemical examination of documents produced from copiers and printers.     

Asking the Gatekeepers: A National Survey of Judges on Judging Expert Evidence in a Post-Daubert World

Drawing on the responses provided by a survey of state court judges (N = 400), empirical evidence is presented with respect to judges' opinions about the Daubert criteria, their utility as decision-making guidelines, the level to which judges understand their scientific meaning, and how they might apply them when evaluating the admissibility of expert evidence. Proportionate stratified random sampling was used to obtain a representative sample of state court judges. Part I of the survey was a structured telephone interview (response rate of 71%) and in Part II, respondents had an option of completing the survey by telephone or receiving a questionnaire in the mail (response rate of 81%). Survey results demonstrate that judges overwhelmingly support the gatekeeping role as defined by Daubert, irrespective of the admissibility standard followed in their state. However, many of the judges surveyed lacked the scientific literacy seemingly necessitated by Daubert. Judges had the most difficulty operationalizing falsifiability and error rate, with only 5% of the respondents demonstrating a clear understanding of falsifiability and only 4% demonstrating a clear understanding of error rate. Although there was little consensus about the relative importance of the guidelines, judges attributed more weight to general acceptance as an admissibility criterion. Although most judges agreed that a distinction could be made between scientific and technical or otherwise specialized knowledge, the ability to apply the Daubert guidelines appeared to have little bearing on whether specific types of expert evidence were designated as science or nonscience. Moreover, judges' bench philosophy of science seemed to reflect the rhetoric, rather than the substance, of Daubert. Implications of these results for the evolving relationship between science and law and the ongoing debates about Frye, Daubert, Joiner, and Kumho are discussed.