Historical aspects of the determination of the time of death

The origins of the determination of the time of death are presented with special reference to the signs of death, rigor mortis and body cooling, as well as to the supravital electrical response of skeletal muscle. The systematic method for future research resulting from these old experiments is presented, with the aim of making a more precise estimation of the time of death by standardization of the influencing factors.     

Face and neck injuries due to resuscitation versus throttling

Face and neck injuries of 21 patients who died of other causes than mechanic asphyxia and who were resuscitated in connection to dying were analyzed during a 3-year period, 1980-1982. The injuries were predominantly of the type nail impression marks (85%) and showed a regular symmetric distribution tending to form circles around the nostrils and mouth. Injuries inflicted upon mouth-to-mouth ventilation were localized to the nose and at jaw-thrust to the mandibular margins and were easy to differ from those due to throttling. Injuries inflicted on the cheeks upon removal of vomit from the mouth were similar to those seen after violent oral occlusion and those occurring at carotid pulse palpation as indicated by throttling. No fractures of the laryngeal skeleton and no conjunctival haemorrhages were seen.     

Institutional Impediments To Efficient Water Allocation

Current water institutions were developed for conditions of water penty rather than scarcity and are unable to allocate water resources efficiently under conditions such as those in the arid West. This paper reviews riparian, appropriation and correlative water law as well as existing admin- istrative rules governing water use in California and finds that all of these institutions violate norms of economic efficiency. The review suggests that decentralized water systems such as mutual irrigation companies with their appropriate laws are more flexible than centralized federal or state systems in promoting water movement to higher valued use. The paper concludes that institutional mechanisms which promote rather than inhibit water trades and transfers are more appropriate to arid areas and that these institutions will become increasingly popular as water becomes increasingly scarce.     

Cesare Beccaria: Utilitarian or retributivist?

Ever since Cesare Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments first appeared in 1764, it has been common to regard its author as a theorist of criminal jurisprudence who stressed considerations of utility to the exclusion of considerations of justice. There is strong evidence for this view, and Beccaria was in many ways a forerunner of Bentham. There is, however, another side to Beccaria that has often been overlooked. In the way in which he established the right of the sovereign to punish and in his concern for the rights of the criminal (rights which no consideration of utility could override), Beccaria showed that he was much closer to the outlook commonly associated with Kant and Hegel than one would at first suspect. Though there were utilitarian aspects to his thought, Beccaria may be considered basically a retributivist who incorporated certain obvious, though by no means dominant, utilitarian themes into his work. In blending utilitarianism and retributivism, Beccaria was usually consistent, and he usually gave greater emphasis to the former.