A Tale of Two Laws: The U.S. Congress Confronts Habeas Corpus Petitions and Section 1983 Lawsuits

Actions by state prisoners have comprised a large and growing body of litigation in the U.S. federal courts over the past thirty years. State prisoners can challenge the validity of their state trial court convictions (habeas corpus petitions) and the constitutionality of the conditions of their confinement to state prisons and jails (Section 1983 lawsuits). Currently, one out of every five civil cases filed in the federal system is brought by a jail or prison inmate. When in the past did these cases begin to arise? What is the present trend? What does the future hold concerning the number of cases likely to be filed? These questions are at the heart of the current research. Care is needed in addressing these queries because it is neither easy nor obvious to know what propels the volume of litigation. Moreover, the future is especially difficult to predict in light of recent legislation adopted by the United States Congress to limit the number of habeas corpus petitions and the number of Section 1983 lawsuits filed each year. The unique contribution of the current research is threefold. First, an improved methodology is used to describe past patterns and to forecast future trends. Simply stated, prisoner litigation is hypothesized to be related to the number of prisoners. As the number of prisoners increases, the volume of litigation increases proportionately. What is not obvious about this relationship is that it has persisted over the past decades despite substantial changes in legal doctrines designed to affect the filing of the litigation. Second, the effects of two major congressional actions passed in 1996 to limit prisoner litigation are examined and assessed for their success in achieving their intended objectives. The first of these, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which sought to restrict habeas corpus petitions, is judged to have virtually no impact. The second piece of legislation, the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act, which sought to curtail lawsuits against correctional officials, appears to have lowered the volume of litigation in the short‐term, but has not disrupted the underlying link between the number of prisoners and the number of lawsuits. Finally, estimates are made of the future volume of litigation and the corresponding number of federal judges needed to resolve prisoner litigation. These estimates have the advantage of being based on significant statistical relationships and accounting for the effects of recent congressional action.     

The Senate Electoral Cycle and Bicameral Appropriations Politics

We consider the consequences of the Senate electoral cycle and bicameralism for distributive politics, introducing the concept of contested credit claiming, i.e., that members of a state's House and Senate delegations must share the credit for appropriations that originate in their chamber with delegation members in the other chamber. Using data that isolate appropriations of each chamber, we test a model of the strategic incentives contested credit claiming creates. Our empirical analysis indicates that the Senate electoral cycle induces a back-loading of benefits to the end of senatorial terms, but that the House blunts this tendency with countercyclical appropriations. Our analysis informs our understanding of appropriations earmarking and points a way forward in studying the larger consequences of bicameral legislatures.     

Population data for a novel, highly discriminating tetra-local Y-chromosome short tandem repeat: DYS503

Population: Population samples for gene diversity studies were obtained from the Virginia Division of Forensic Science (bloodstains), Richmond, VA. Ninety-eight Caucasian and 100 African American samples were included in this study.     

Performance evaluation and optimization of multiplex PCRs for the highly discriminating OSU 10-locus set Y-STRs

In a previous study, a new set of Y-chromosome short tandem repeats, the OSU 10-locus set (MPM1 and MPM2), was shown to have a higher discrimination power when evaluated against the 10 SWGDAM loci on a common population panel. Here, we describe the optimization of the multiplex reactions using dye-labeled primers followed by performance evaluations. The loci exhibited high precision, human male specificity, reliability in different body fluids, high sensitivity, stability, and the ability to amplify nonprobative casework and mixture samples. Stutter for the all of the loci, with the exception of the highly polymorphic locus DYS688, was similar to that observed for autosomal loci. The results of the performance evaluations reinforced the utility of these loci.     

Examining the moderating role of family cohesion on the relationship between witnessed community violence and delinquency in a national sample of adolescents

Witnessed community violence has been linked to a number of internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescents. Guided by Cicchetti and Lynch's (1993) ecological-transactional model, this study aimed to examine the impact that family-level factors had on negative outcomes associated with witnessed community violence. Using a nationally representative sample, we explored the moderational role of family cohesion in the relationship between witnessing community violence and delinquent behavior while taking demographic variables into account. Results from the investigation suggested that low levels of family cohesion were predictive of delinquency after controlling for race, gender, past delinquency, and direct trauma. In addition, the findings suggested that family cohesion moderated the impact of witnessed community violence on future delinquent behavior. Future directions for research and implications for practice were also discussed.     

The expenses of trustees, the right of indemnity and the role of taxation: making the equation work

The purpose of this article is to examine a Trustee's indemnityin respect of its expenses and liabilities incurred in connectionwith the Trust and how beneficiaries are able to have them scrutinized.This article considers, in particular, specific assessment proceduresthat have evolved in England, Jersey and Guernsey and, further,difficulties that have arisen in ensuring that any assessmentprocedure is consistent with the Trustee's right of indemnity.In Jersey, all these issues came to the fore in the case ofRe Internine Trust [2007] JCA 164 that is examined in particulardetail.     

Designing real terrorism futures

In July 2003, the Policy Analysis Market (PAM) was described as terrorism futures, and immediately cancelled. While PAM was not in fact designed to be terrorism futures, I here consider five design issues with implementing and using real terrorism futures: combinatorics, manipulation, moral hazard, hiding prices, and decision selection bias. As neither these nor other problems seem insurmountable, terrorism futures appears to be a technically realistic possibility.     

The activities of the institute

The Russian economy, though so far in better shape than Europe, is facing the possibility of very slow growth in the near future. Its tendency to volatility was demonstrated in 2008-09, when Russian GDP fell more than that of any other large country. Looking at that experience and at current concerns, it seems that Russia has both demand-side (slow world growth, uncertain future oil prices) and supply-side (falling labour force) problems. The continuing failure to provide secure property rights for business probably compounds these difficulties.