What the Trial Judge Needs to Know about the Convention of 23 November 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance

Since the 1950s, there have been several international multi‐lateral treaties for recognition and enforcement of child and spousal support orders. They operated, primarily, in civil law countries where “creditor‐based jurisdiction” allowed establishment of an order in the country of habitual residence of the child or the custodial parent. The United States, requiring “minimum contacts” with the debtor to establish personal jurisdiction, could not be a party to such agreements. For nearly fifty years the U.S., and a few states, sought to fill the need for international reciprocity by negotiating individual country‐to‐country or state‐to‐country arrangements. With ratification of the 2007 Family Maintenance Convention, the United States was finally able to join in a multi‐lateral treaty. The treaty took effect in the United States on January 1, 2017, establishing procedures for international recognition, enforcement and modification of family support orders with 35 other countries already party to the Convention (including the entire European Union). The grand bargain struck during the negotiations between 2003 and 2007 was that the U.S. would honor a foreign order if, under the facts presented, there were sufficient minimum contacts with the debtor that would have supported personal jurisdiction if the order had been entered in any state in the U.S. If unable to recognize a foreign order, the U.S. agreed to take steps to issue a new one. The treaty establishes administrative procedures that, in many respects, are nearly identical to interstate enforcement of domestic support orders in this country. But there are also aspects of the treaty that are entirely new and warrant explanation for family and juvenile court judges. This article focuses on several unique provisions of the treaty that judges and attorneys need to understand.     

Estimating the Time of Death in Domestic Canines

Abstract:  Because 36.1% of U.S. households have dogs, the time of death (TOD) of dogs at crime scenes can be useful to forensic investigators. However, there are few published studies based on postmortem changes in dogs. This study, conducted indoors in still air at approximately room temperature, monitored the postmortem reduction in rectal, liver, brain, and aural temperatures in 16 dogs for 32 h after death. Graphs of temperature reduction were prepared to estimate the TOD of dogs within the first 32 h postmortem. Sex, body mass, and hair coat density did not affect the rate of body temperature reduction, but increased body weight and volume slowed it. Rectal temperature was the most convenient, reasonable site for measuring body temperature. Vitreous humor potassium ion concentration [K⁺] was measured in both eyes at c.  1.5 and 7 h after death. Both eyes had the same [K⁺] when measured simultaneously, and [K⁺] increased after death.     

Thermal degradation analysis of amino acids in fingerprint residue by pyrolysis GC-MS to develop new latent fingerprint developing reagents

Conventional development of latent fingerprints is compromised when the prints are decomposed by extreme temperatures, such as those encountered when a weapon cartridge is fired, an improvised explosive device is detonated, and/or in arson cases. Understanding how these extreme temperatures alter the chemical and physical properties of latent fingerprint residue could aid in the discovery of a reagent that could effectively develop these decomposed fingerprints. To mimic scenarios where fingerprints may be exposed to high heat conditions, standards of the five most abundant amino acids in fingerprint residue as well as extracted fingerprint residue were pyrolized under controlled conditions. Compounds identified as pyrolytic decomposition products were 3,6-dimethylpiperazine-2,5-dione (from alanine), maleimide, and 2,5-furandione (from aspartic acid). The pyrograms and selected ion traces show these products to hold promise as indicators of decomposed fingerprint residues and, therefore, may serve as good candidate substrates for a developing reagent.     

Unpacking pivotal politics: exploring the differential effects of the filibuster and veto pivots

Formal models of politics regularly combine assumptions about a variety of actors and institutions to produce equilibrium expectations, which serve as the primary target for empirical testing. Yet the underlying assumptions can vary in their accuracy among actors and across time and context. We focus on the pivotal politics model of lawmaking and argue that a full evaluation of the theory requires a granular analysis of its two primary components: the filibuster and veto “pivots” in Congress. We show that both types of pivots contribute to the success of pivotal politics in explaining postwar lawmaking, but that the relevance of each varies based on institution-specific contexts. Specifically, the filibuster pivot has little explanatory power before the 1970s, when norms of filibuster use were quite restrictive, while the veto pivot’s explanatory power is limited to situations in which the president has sufficient public backing to be a force in the legislative process.     

Perceived legitimacy of Supreme Court decisions: Three functions of source credibility

Public reaction to a Supreme Court decision hinges, in part, on the level of diffuse support enjoyed by the Court prior to announcement of the ruling. Previous investigators have exchanged adamant claims concerning the legitimacy-conferring ability of the Supreme Court, yet these studies have consistently ignored theoretical explanations of the psychological determinants of a receiver's response to an authoritative edict. Examined from the context of a cognitive view of persuasion, the credibility of the Supreme Court as a message source should not be expected to have a simple positive effect on opinion. Instead, unique effects may result from the interaction of source credibility and other components of the process of persuasion. This paper reports the results of a series of experiments that demonstrate that the credibility of the Supreme Court can serve three unique persuasive functions: Source credibility can cue a simple positive response, prompt increased cognitive effort, and serve as evidence in support of a persuasive claim.