“Modern” death qualification

We report on the results of a comprehensive statewide survey of death penalty attitudes in which respondents were categorized in terms of their death-qualified or excludable status under several different Supreme Court doctrines governing the death-qualification process. We found that although changes in public opinion with respect to the death penalty in general have altered the relative sizes of the death-qualified and excludable groups, significant differences remain between them on a number of attitudinal dimensions, no matter which doctrines are employed to define these groups. We discuss the implications of these recent data, especially with respect to the Supreme Court's continued reference to the death-qualified jury as an index of community standards with respect to the death penalty itself.     

Were There More Acceptable Alternatives to the Iraqi High Tribunal?

The Iraqi High Tribunal has been criticized on all sides forits failure to deliver fair trials. Many observers have advocatedan international or internationalized court instead. However,these alternatives, even if desirable, were outside the ambitof what was possible in post-war Iraq. Given that a domesticcourt was the only realistic option, much more help and supportshould have been given to it by the international community.     

The Creation of Investigating Chambers at the International Criminal Court: An Option Worth Pursuing?

At a time when the position of investigating judge has beenabolished in a number of civil law countries, and is being questionedin those in which it remains, it might seem curious to callfor such a position to be created at the International CriminalCourt (ICC). However, experience at the ad hoc internationalcriminal tribunals (‘ad hoc tribunals’), and especiallyat the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslaviashows that the essentially adversarial procedure used in internationalcriminal proceedings is not wholly suitable for trying complexand highly political international cases. Having investigatingjudges participate in the investigations of such cases coulddecisively enhance the effectiveness, legitimacy and fairnessof international proceedings. This would be particularly appropriatein the ICC's complex legal system, which allows victims to participatein the proceedings and claim reparations. However, this newprocedure must clearly come with a number of safeguards in orderto avoid the failures attendant on the use of the investigatingjudge in domestic systems, which could be fatal to an embryonicand fragile international court.     

Choking death on a live fish (Dicologoglossa cuneata)

A choking death of a healthy fisherman, who put a type of live sole between his jaws to free up his hands so that he could collect more fish to put into his basket, is described. The fish squirmed into the larynx and upper trachea and the attempts to rescue the man by his colleagues who used pliers did not succeed, and the man died. Other published cases are reviewed, and risk factors and rescue possibilities discussed.     

Single-strand conformation polymorphism of hyper-variable regions HV1 and HV2 of human mitochondrial DNA: detection by silver staining

Human mitochondrial DNA from 50 trios consisting of mother (M), child (C) and father (F) was PCR amplified with primers flanking the hyper-variable regions, HVR1 and HVR2. The amplified products were then fractionated under non-denaturing conditions, silver-stained and compared by single-stranded conformational polymorphism (SSCP). In all but one case, mother and child displayed identical patterns, which could be promptly distinguished from that of the father. For the remaining cases, either set of primers was sufficient to resolve the familial ties. In no instance, M displayed alleles different from those of C within each trio, demonstrating that no false exclusions occurred. The SSCP approach proved to be a robust technique suitable as a preliminary screening in cases requiring identification of multiple samples.     

Explaining Capital Punishment Support in an Abolitionist Country: The Case of the Netherlands

A substantial minority (35%) of the Dutch population is in favor of capital punishment. In this paper, it is argued that in a staunchly abolitionist country such as The Netherlands, the existence and perseverance of such support can be better understood and explained by conceiving of capital punishment support in attitudinal terms as part of a law and order syndrome. Death penalty attitudes are analyzed by means of hierarchic logistic regression analysis. It is shown that support can be modeled quite well, partly in terms of general attitudes to criminal justice, partly in terms of political and sociodemographic parameters. Within the criminal justice attitudes complex, more support is found among those endorsing harsh treatment of offenders, those willing to grant far-reaching powers to justice authorities, those believing that the government is not delivering on the topic of crime fighting, and those who are concerned about the level of crime. Within the political context, more support is enlisted among people who abstain from voting and those who vote at either extreme of the political spectrum as opposed to central parties' supporters. In sociodemographic segments it is the younger and poorly educated who are the strongest supporters of capital punishment. It is suggested that endorsing capital punishment can be better understood as an expressive act, displaying dissatisfaction with judicial and political elites in the country.     

Principles and juridical limits to human embryo research]

This work intends to provide a wide scope of the legal situation in Brazil referred to Human Embryos and how it has been developed through the 20th century. Across the last century, the human being got the possibility of making genetic experiments with human embryos. Our main goal is to assume the future responsibility of these actions through a juridical and ethical point of view.     

Diversity of 26-locus Y-STR haplotypes in a Nepalese population sample: isolation and drift in the Himalayas

Twenty-six Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci were amplified in a sample of 769 unrelated males from Nepal, using two multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays. The 26 loci gave a discriminating power of 0.997, with 59% unique haplotypes, and the highest frequency haplotype occurring 12 times. We identified novel alleles at four loci, microvariants at a further two, and nine examples of amelogenin-Y deletions (1.2%). Comparison with a similarly sized Bhutanese sample typed with the same markers suggested histories of isolation and drift, with drift having a greater effect in Bhutan. Extended (11-locus) haplotypes for the Nepalese samples have been submitted to the Y-STR Haplotype Reference Database (YHRD).