Microscopic Residues of Bone from Dissolving Human Remains in Acids

Dissolving bodies is a current method of disposing of human remains and has been practiced throughout the years. During the last decade in the Netherlands, two cases have emerged in which human remains were treated with acid. In the first case, the remains of a cremated body were treated with hydrofluoric acid. In the second case, two complete bodies were dissolved in a mixture of hydrochloric and sulfuric acid. In both cases, a great variety of evidence was collected at the scene of crime, part of which was embedded in resin, polished, and investigated using SEM/EDX. Apart from macroscopic findings like residual bone and artificial teeth, in both cases, distinct microscopic residues of bone were found as follows: (partly) digested bone, thin‐walled structures, and recrystallized calcium phosphate. Although some may believe it is possible to dissolve a body in acid completely, at least some of these microscopic residues will always be found.     

Copyright in the Information Society: Scenario's and Strategies

Copyright law trades off the costs of limiting access to information against the benefits of providing incentives to create information in the first place. The development of digital rights management (DRM) may disturb the balance between creation and distribution of information. What policy strategy should be followed by a national government given that effective systems of DRM may develop and given that legislation and policy-making increasingly take place at the level of the European Union? Because the quality of the protection that can be obtained by DRM is uncertain, two scenarios are developed. The scenarios require different policy reactions. Alternative policy strategies are discussed.     

Jail reform litigation: The issue of rights and remedies

This paper looks at the vast array of lawsuits filed by jail inmates challenging the conditions of their confinement. While much attention has been focused on prison reform litigation, many of the nation's jails have been subject to civil rights lawsuits, and many are now operating under some form of court order. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Criminal Justice Association, October 7–9, 1987, Birmingham, AL.     

The systemic error in the vertical component of handgun bullet trajectory reconstructions

Establishing the path or trajectory of a fired bullet is an often recurring part of shooting incident reconstruction. The current study describes how gravitational pull causes a systemic error on the vertical component of a trajectory reconstruction. Bullet drop, drop angle, and vertical offset are explained and calculated for 10 different handgun/ammunition combinations over a range of distances up to 100 m. The presented results are intended to provide forensic firearm examiners with a reference frame for the magnitude of error introduced on handgun bullet trajectory reconstructions over distance. Threshold values of 20 and 30 m are proposed as conservative distances up to where bullet trajectories can be modeled as straight lines with subsonic/transonic handgun bullets and with supersonic handgun bullets respectively. Both the bullet drop and vertical offset will be below 5 cm at these distances for those categories. The drop angle will be below 0.3°.     

“Wisdom of crowds”? A decentralised election forecasting model that uses citizens’ local expectations

Many studies report the “wonders of aggregation” and that groups (often) yield better decisions than individuals. Can this “wisdom of crowds”-effect be used to forecast elections? Forecasting models in first-past-the-post systems need to translate vote shares into seat shares by some formula; however, the seat–vote ratio alters from election to election. To circumvent this problem, this paper proposes citizen forecasting, which aggregates citizens’ local expectations to directly forecast constituencies. Using data from the 2010 British Election Study, this paper finds (1) that groups are better forecasters than individuals, (2) that citizen forecasting correctly predicts a hung parliament, and (3) that marginality and group size are important predictors for “getting it right”.     

Magazine Influence on Cartridge Case Ejection Patterns with Glock Pistols

In this study, the cartridge case ejection patterns of six different Glock model pistols (one specimen per model) were compared under three conditions: firing with a loaded magazine, an empty magazine, and without magazine. The distances, covered by the ejected cartridge cases given these three conditions, were compared for each of the six models. A significant difference was found between the groups of data for each of the tested specimens. This indicates that it is important that, to reconstruct a shooting scene incident based on the ejection patterns of a pistol, test shots are fired with the same pistol type and under the correct magazine condition.     

Eyewitnesses: A comparison of live,video, and photo line-ups

An experiment was conducted in which the effectiveness of three line-up methods (live, video, and photographs) was compared. Participants witnessed a staged event and were subsequently required, by one of the three methods, to identify the target. Both target-present and target-absent line-ups were used. The results showed that all methods led to an equal number of correct identifications (hits). In the target-absent line-ups, participants more often incorrectly identified a person in the video and photographs condition than in the live condition. Presenting photographs simultaneously or sequentially did not affect the number of correct judgments. Dynamic video images, showing locomotion and facial expression, had a marginal significant effect on the number of correct judgments as compared with the static video images. Practical implications are discussed.