Suicidal gunshot to the nape from a small-bore rifle

A 55-year-old man was found dead on the bed lying on his side in a pool of blood with a bullet entrance hole in the nape. Behind his body, a semi-automatic rifle Remington Nylon, cal. .22 LR, was detected. As the gunshot entrance site was rather unusual for suicide, a forensic autopsy was performed, which showed a contact shot to the nape with the bullet path running upward to the left frontal area. The man had been treated with citalopram for delusional depression, so that a suicidal act seemed plausible, and the autopsy and criminalistic findings were also compatible with this assumption. A remarkable fact of the present case is that a long firearm had been used. Reports on suicidal shots to the nape are comparatively rare in the medicolegal literature and usually refer to pistols or revolvers.     

Unusual circumstances in a fourfold complex suicide

Complex suicides are defined as suicides using more than one method, which may sometimes suggest homicide. We present the case of a 27-year-old man who killed himself by using four different methods. The man was known as a loner and sufferd from bipolar psychosis. An eyewitness saw him afire and falling out of a window on the 4th floor of a hotel. He was wearing a judo dress with the belt wound twice around his neck. He died in a hospital about two hours later. The autopsy showed signs of neck compression typical of (self)-strangulation, several stab and cut wounds in the thoracic and abdominal region from sharp force, extensive first- to third-degree burns caused by the effect of heat, contusions of internal organs, serial rib fractures and several bone fractures of the extremities as signs of blunt force. The CO-Hb value in the blood amounted to 7%; the other toxicological tests were negative. Death was found to be due to exsanguination from a deep stab wound in the abdomen and multiple trauma caused by the fall from a great height in the course of a suicide. Homicide could be excluded due to the circumstances of the case, which demonstrated again that both the medical findings and the investigation results of the police are indispensable for the differentiation between suicide and homicide.     

Identification of sinicuichi alkaloids in human serum after intoxication caused by oral intake of a Heimia salicifolia extract

A 26-year-old male came to hospital around midnight complaining about muscle pain of the extremities as well as the tongue and slightly raised temperature. He reported the intake of an unknown amount of sinicuichi tea he had fermented over 24 h by adding yeast and sugar. The patient was treated with Vomex A (dimenhydrinate) and released from hospital the following afternoon. A blood sample taken shortly after submission and a small amount of the used plant material were available for analysis. Herbal drugs are widely used as stimulants as a legal alternative to illegal psychoactive drugs or in traditional context. Among many others like Sassafras officinalis, Salvia divinorum or Ephedra, Heimia salicifolia ("sinicuichi"), a species of the lythraceae family, is available via several online shops. Brewed up or fermented and consumed, the so-called sinicuichi tea may cause exhilarating feelings and an alteration of awareness accompanied by bradycardia, relaxation of the muscles and a pleasant faintness. Therefore Sinicuichi brew and heimia leaves are widely used for medication by the natives of Central and South America. After liquid extraction with acetone five different alkaloids were detected in the plant material by LC-MS/MS operated in the Q1 scan mode applying a TurboIonSpray source. Subsequently, Product Ion Spectra were recorded and after confirming the molecular formula by determining the accurate masses, possible structures of H. salicifolia alkaloids were assigned. The information of the Product Ion Spectra was then used to set up a sensitive multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) method. Applying the MRM method to the patient's serum sample after alkaline liquid-liquid extraction all of the five heimia alkaloids detected in the plant material were also detected qualitatively in the serum extract, confirming the ingestion.     

Kriminalpolitische Initiative: Mehr Sicherheit durch weniger Haft! – Vorschläge Nr 4 (7. Juni 2009)

Die Vorschläge der "Kriminalpolitischen Initiative" (KI) zum Haftentlastungspaket haben einige Ergebnisse gebracht (vgl StRÄG 2008 BGBl I 2007/109).1) Daneben gibt es bestimmte Fragen, die noch nicht in Angriff genommen wurden. Die KI greift daher zwei ihr wichtig erscheinende Probleme heraus, die einerseits am unteren, andererseits am oberen Ende der Intensitätsskala strafrechtlichen Freiheitsentzuges liegen, und macht dazu die folgenden Vorschläge.     

The relation of ADHD and violent aggression: What can we learn from epidemiological and genetic studies?

Disruptive behavior includes psychopathological and behavioral constructs like aggression, impulsivity, violence, antisociality and psychopathy and is often closely related with diagnostic categories like conduct disorder (CD), attention deficit disorder (ADHD) and antisocial personality disorder (ASP). There is now clear evidence that neurobiological and environmental factors contribute to these phenotypes. A mounting body of evidence also suggests interactive effects of genetic and environmental risks.In this selective review we give an overview over epidemiological aspects of the relation between ADHD and antisocial behavior, including violent aggression and psychopathy. Moreover, we summarize recent findings from molecular genetic studies and particularly discuss pleiotropic effects of a functional polymorphism of the serotonin transporter promoter gene (5HTTLPR) and childhood adversity on ADHD and violent behavior. The reported gene–environment interactions are not only informative for understanding the neurobiological underpinnings of disruptive behavior, but also throw some light on the relation between ADHD and violent behavior from a genetic perspective. The impact of genetic research on forensic psychiatry and future directions of neurobiological research are discussed.     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Beyond Bureaucracy—Public Administration as Political Integrator and Non‐Weberian Thought in Germany

The political role of public administration holds an ambiguous status in public administration theory. The dominant paradigms of the discipline offer more or less negative perspectives. Max Weber’s notion of bureaucracy conceives public administration as the apolitical tool of government, while the public choice school conceives it as the realm of individual selfishness and rent seeking at taxpayers’ expense. In this unfavorable epistemological environment, positive concepts of what makes public administration “political” can hardly flourish. However, as public authorities may organize clientele participation and consequently co‐opt stakeholders, they provide for symbolic sense making and create patterns of identity. Public administration thus works as a political integrator in its own right. Unfortunately, this subject is not prominent within contemporary scholarly research. German political integration through administration is analyzed here in order to address these and related theoretical questions.     

Effective evaluation of projects on violence against women and girls

What makes evaluations useful for interventions on violence against women and girls (VAWG)? This article reports on a qualitative comparative analysis of 39 evaluations, and shows that it takes a combination of elements to produce good evaluation effects. It identifies eight configurations of conditions which have generated effective evaluations. Key elements were the evaluation context, the evaluators’ sensitivity to gender and to the participants’ rights and security, and consultation with persons considered to be the ultimate “beneficiaries” of the intervention. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches could lead to effective evaluation. The article concludes with recommendations for evaluation users.     

The party politics of legislative‒executive relations in security and defence policy

Abstract

The move from territorial defence to ‘wars of choice’ has influenced the domestic politics of military interventions. This paper examines the extent to which both the substance and the procedure of military interventions are contested among political parties. Regarding the substance, our analysis of Chapel Hill Expert Survey data demonstrates that across European states political parties on the right are more supportive of military missions than those on the left. On the decision-making procedures, our case studies of Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom show that political parties on the left tend to favour strong parliamentary control whereas those on the right tend to prefer an unconstrained executive, although with differences across countries. These findings challenge the view that ‘politics stops at the water’s edge’ and contribute to a better understanding of how political parties and parliaments influence military interventions.