Fighting back: Lethal responses to predatory attacks

Each year millions of Americans become victims of predatory crimes. The way victims respond to these attacks varies from complicance with offenders' requests to physically challenging offenders. In some cases, the physical defense of self and property has lethal consequences for the initial offender. While much is known about felony murder victims and typical homicide offenders, little is known about individuals who fight back against predatory attack by using lethal violence. In this paper, we use data from the Homicides in Chicago, 1965–1995 study to describe the characteristics of defensive homicide offenders and to determine how they compare with felony murder victims and defensive homicide offenders. Our results indicate that defensive homicide offenders are more similar to typical homicide offenders than felony murder victims, and are even more likely to have violent criminal histories and to use firearms than typical homicide offenders. Our results challenge the common perception that individuals who fight back against predatory attack are simply “law-abiding citizens.” We conclude the paper with a discussion of the implications of our study for additional research and police practice. Authors' Note: The authors thank editor Dennis Stevens and James Black for their helpful comments on earlier draft of the paper.     

Do people care about democracy? An experiment exploring the value of voting rights

Public Choice - In almost all democratic national elections an individual vote cannot change the election outcome. The fact that many individuals nevertheless participate voluntarily in such...     

Environment, Damages, and Compensation

This article, the first part of a larger study devoted to the compensation of damages caused by pollution, reviews the existing sources of compensation in the United States: the common law of torts, federal and state statutes, and various forms of commercial insurance coverages. It shows how the rules of nuisance law have remained flexible in response to changing customs and public policies, how for a long time prevailing attitudes favored industrial development and economic growth over physical comfort, and how increasing concerns about the long-term health effects of environmental pollution have created a trend in the opposite direction. The author also points out that the existing system of liability and compensation, which relies on individual actions and case-by-case adjudication, is not ideally suited for dealing with the effects of large-scale pollution or for the —primarily political—task of evaluating and balancing all of the interests and values, present and future, economic and noneconomic, that need to be considered before decisions can be made that are bound to affect the health and economic well-being of a large part of the population beyond the immediate parties to a lawsuit. This indicates a need for a comprehensive approach that would not only coordinate the rules concerning liability and those concerning insurance and other sources of compensation but would also make the compensation of pollution damages an integral part of a thoroughly rational and consistent environmental policy. The various possibilities of constructing such a comprehensive compensation system will be discussed in the second part of the study, to be published in a forth-coming issue of the American Bar Foundation Research Journal.     

The detection and separation of antiparkinson preparations in cadaveric material by gas-liquid chromatography

Method of gas-chromatographic detection of anti-parkinsonism substances (amedine, amysile, dinesine, midantane, tropazine and cyclodole) isolated from the cadaveric material is suggested. Conditions for separation of anti-parkinsonism substances when they are all present in the cadaveric material are developed.