Suicide by gunshot while driving an automobile

Suicide by a motor vehicle occurs more commonly than is realized, and may be difficult to prove. Suicide by other means while driving a vehicle is far less common. An automobile driven by a young woman left a road at high speed, became airborne, and came to rest on its top in a front yard. This was initially assumed to be a fatal traffic accident. Upon righting the vehicle, a .357 revolver was found on the ground beside it. A single, fatal, self-inflicted gunshot wound was found in the decedent's midanterior thorax. A suicide note was found in her purse. She had been chronically depressed and had twice attempted suicide. Vehicular suicides may constitute 10-30% of fatal single-vehicle crashes, and must be considered in any vehicular mishap lacking another reasonable explanation. Suicide by other means while driving is far less common than suicidal vehicular collision and suicidal death from carbon monoxide in motor vehicles. An autopsy should be performed in each of these sometimes-low-priority single-vehicle deaths in order to certify vehicular accidents correctly; to discover and document vehicular suicides; and to detect homicides disguised as vehicular mishaps.     

A single fatal penetrating chest wound from shattered wind-blown glass

The great majority of penetrating wounds of the thorax result from firearms and bladed weapons. Penetrating wounds of the heart and of the great vessels still have a high immediate mortality. While penetrating chest wounds occasionally result from fragments of glass; most severe and fatal wounds from glass result from one's falling into or through architectural (plate) glass, sustaining wounds of abdomen or extremities, or both. A single, fatal penetrating chest wound resulting from a wind-blown fragment of glass is distinctly uncommon. The unique case of this type reported herein is that of a 12-year-old youth who was struck in his home in the left anterior chest by a single, sharp, slender fragment of glass blown from a window which shattered in a thunderstorm. This resulted in a rapidly fatal penetrating wound involving thoracic viscera. The forensic pathologist must thoroughly investigate and document such accidental deaths, modifying his/her autopsy procedure as necessary for these purposes and to avoid accidental injury at the autopsy table.     

The unreliability of using a urine ethanol concentration to predict a blood ethanol concentration

Of approximately 5,000 forensic cases with a positive ethanol result, over 1,000 were available in which both blood and urine were present for comparison of ethanol content. Data were examined for calculation of the urine to blood ethanol concentration ratio, with the intent of evaluating the validity of predicting a blood ethanol level given a urine ethanol level. The overall urine to blood ethanol concentration ratio was 1.57:1 with a range of 0.7 to 21.0:1. The extremely wide range of values implies that a large degree of error would be introduced if a mean ratio was used when predicting a blood ethanol level from a urine ethanol level.     

Ivory Tower Meets Smoke-Filled Back Rooms of Politics: An Academic Perspective on Illinois' School Funding Debate

In anticipation of an upcoming legislative debate, in the early summer of 1996 public advocacy groups in Illinois contracted with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs of the University of Illinois to provide analysis of school funding reform proposals. The intent was to make the analysis and models widely available for use by government officials as well as concerned citizens. We prepared a report on options for Illinois to help focus the school funding discussion on the fundamental policy choices facing lawmakers. In this article, we summarize the process of and the university's contribution to the policy debate. Five illustrative alternatives to the current system are analyzed. While we think these options are of interest for their own sake, our primary goal in writing this article is to provide an example of how academic analysts can make a constructive contribution to heated political debate without advocating any particular plan.     

Interparental Conflict and Late Adolescents' Sensitization to Conflict: The Moderating Effects of Emotional Functioning and Gender

The present study examined the extent to which individuals exposed to frequent and intense interparental conflict (IPC) across childhood and adolescence are sensitized to conflict during late adolescence. Late adolescents' perceptions of their exposure to IPC while growing up were examined in relation to their self-reported emotional and social-cognitive reactions to simulated conflict. Emotional functioning and gender were expected to moderate the relations of IPC to late adolescents' reactions. IPC exposure had stronger effects on the negative emotional reactions of adolescents low in emotional functioning and males than on the emotional reactions of adolescents higher in emotional functioning and females, respectively. Moreover, IPC was positively related to females' negative beliefs about conflict implications but unrelated to males' beliefs. Results are discussed in terms of the sensitization hypothesis and gender differences in sensitivity to conflict.     

Shaping the Constitutional Dialogue on Federalism: Canada's Supreme Court as Meta-Political Actor

This article challenges the view that the Supreme Court hasbecome the predominant authority on the constitutional distributionof rights and entitlements among governments in the Canadianfederation. By assuming this position of supremacy, criticscontinue, the Court has usurped key policy functions that belongto political actors, a move that has undermined democratic governancein Canada. Against this view, we argue that the management ofCanada's federal constitutional architecture is a responsibilitythe courts share with key political actors. We describe theCourt's role as meta-political, whereby the Court's federalismjurisprudence supplements rather than subverts the constitutionalrole of political actors. We develop our thesis in relationto two subnational constituencies with a distinctive constitutionalstatus in Canada: the province of Quebec and Aboriginal FirstNations.     

What is a Fair Trial? Rape Prosecutions, Disclosure and the Human Rights Act

This article engages with the vogue for predicting the effects of the Human Rights Act 1998 by focusing on the rape prosecution and trial. The specific interest is feminist scrutiny of the right to a fair trial, particularly the concept of ‘fairness’, in light of the increasing use of disclosure rules (in Canada and England) to gain access to medical and counseling records. Transcending the two contemporary narratives of ‘victims’/women’s rights and defendants’ rights in the criminal justice system, the authors argue for the infusion of the legal debate on disclosure with feminist understandings of wider cultural debates. They suggest that an increased reflexivity about intimacy, publicity and power, leading perhaps to the development of a concept of ‘democratic publicity’ (Fraser, 1997, p. 100), might help to revision the meaning of ‘relevant’ evidence in the rape trial. They also suggest that the wide-ranging cultural debate about memory, truth and history, and the emerging commitment to experimentation in responding to massive, institutionalised human rights violations (including apartheid, war crimes and child abuse) might be of use in deepening current thinking about the rape trial and listening to the ‘voice’ of the complainant. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.