The Medical Exception to the Prohibition of Killing: A Matter of the Right Intention?

It has long been thought that by using morphine to alleviate the pain of a dying patient, a doctor runs the risk of causing his death. In all countries this kind of killing is explicitly or silently permitted by the law. That permission is usually explained by appealing to the doctrine of double effect: If the use of morphine shortens life, that is only an unintended side effect. The paper evaluates this view, finding it flawed beyond repair and proposing an alternative explanation. It is not the intention of the doctor that counts, but the availability of an “objective” palliative justification.     

A Randomized Trial of Probation Case Management for Drug-Involved Women Offenders

This paper reports findings from a clinical trial of a probation case management (PCM) intervention for drug-involved women offenders. Participants were randomly assigned to either PCM (n=92) or standard probation (n=91), and followed for 12 months using measures of substance abuse, psychiatric symptoms, social support and service utilization. Arrest data were collected from administrative datasets. The sample (N=183) included mostly African American (57%) and White (20%) women, with a mean age of 34.7 (SD = 9.2) and mean education of 11.6 years (SD = 2.1). Cocaine and heroin were the most frequently reported drugs of abuse, 86% reported prior history of incarceration, and 74% had children. Women assigned to both PCM and standard probation showed change over time in the direction of clinical improvement on 7 of 10 outcomes measured. However, changes observed for the PCM group were no different than those observed for the standard probation group. Higher levels of case management, drug abuse treatment, and probationary supervision may be required to achieve improved outcomes in this population.     

USING STATE LEGAL NEEDS STUDIES TO INCREASE ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR LOW‐INCOME FAMILIES

State legal needs studies quantify and classify the legal problems faced by low‐income families, which is crucial to obtaining and allocating resources. Providers and courts perceive a greater need for family law help than do low‐income households, an important disparity to examine. State legal needs of the poor studies are most valuable when they provide insights into how families' legal needs are or are not being met, allowing for more informed and effective recommendations and action. These measurements of the justice gap go beyond mere recitations of statistics and are useful in increasing access to justice for families.     

Opting Out: The Role of Identity,Capital, and Agency in Prison Visitation

An emerging body of research suggests that prison visitation has implications for better understanding inmate institutional and post-release behavior, but not all inmates receive visits. The goal of the current study is to document barriers to visitation from the inmate perspective and describe the perspectives of those who receive very few or no visits. We also describe how inmate perceptions of visits impacts the way one does time and negotiates subsequent visitation. Using data from qualitative interviews, we find evidence that inmates make willful decisions when negotiating prison visits that are guided by one’s sense of self and further colored by the perceived social and economic strain on families. Our results challenge the perception of a universally positive visitation experience, and introduce the role of inmate choice in selecting into and out of prison visits.     

Gender differences in the evaluation of aggravating and mitigating circumstances: the mediating role of attributional complexity*

At the penalty phase of a capital trial, jurors endorse and weigh aggravators and mitigators. The purpose of the current studies was to examine how gender differences in attributional complexity relate to endorsements of aggravators and mitigators. In Study 1, undergraduate participants read definitions of aggravators and mitigators and rated the extent to which circumstances were aggravating or mitigating. In Study 2, a death qualified community sample read a trial summary, rated the extent to which aggravators and mitigators were present in the case, reported whether mitigators outweighed aggravators, and rendered a sentence. Results indicated that gender differences in mitigator endorsement were mediated by attributional complexity, and that gender differences in sentencing decisions were serially mediated by attributional complexity, mitigator endorsement, and aggravator and mitigator weighing.