Preemption of local smoke-free air ordinances: the implications of judicial opinions for meeting national health objectives.

Elimination of state laws that preempt local antismoking ordinances is a national health objective. However, the tobacco industry and its supporters have continued to pursue state-level preemption of local tobacco control ordinances as part of an apparent strategy to avoid the diffusion of grassroots antismoking initiatives. And, an increasing number of challenges to local ordinances by the tobacco industry and persons supported by the tobacco industry are being decided in state supreme courts and courts of appeals. The outcomes of seemingly similar cases about the validity of local smoke-free air ordinances vary significantly by state. This paper examines the common and unique aspects of the decisions and the potential implications of court rulings on preemption for future state tobacco control efforts and achievement of national health objectives around the elimination of preemption. Using a search strategy developed for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation (STATE) System, cases where a state or federal appellate level court made a finding on the validity of a local smoke-free air ordinance or regulation were identified in 19 states. In contrast to previous studies, we found that cases in approximately half of states were decided for local governments. We also found that across the states, courts were considering similar factors in their decisions including the extent to which: (1) the local government possessed the authority to pass the ordinance, (2) the ordinance conflicted with the state constitution, and (3) state statutes preempt the ordinance.     

LISTEN TO ME! EMPOWERING YOUTH AND COURTS THROUGH INCREASED YOUTH PARTICIPATION IN DEPENDENCY HEARINGS

Currently, there are more than half a million youth in foster care. Often, these youth are unaware of when, or if, legal hearings about their lives are taking place. This Note advocates for states to pass laws ensuring that youth receive notice of their hearings and for courts to conduct review hearings when youth are not present. Through the course of this Note, the benefits of youth participation are outlined, as are the reasons most often given for denying youth the opportunity to meaningfully participate. The Note concludes with suggestions to help courts more effectively engage youth and the benefits of doing so.     

A Study of the Emergence of Cooperation in Mediation

All mediators confront the challenge of how to encourage cooperation among parties in a mediation. Based on a phenomenological study of workplace mediation, this article explores the variables that are linked to the emergence of cooperation between parties. In the first part of the study, factors influencing the desire to cooperate are identified and categorized, based upon whether they help or hinder cooperation. The second part of the study compares the characteristics of cooperative and antagonistic mediation climates in order to better understand how cooperation is established during the mediation process. Based on the findings, strategies are proposed to help mediators facilitate the transition of an antagonistic climate into a cooperative one and thereby encourage the emergence of cooperation.     

The Cohort-Size Sample-Size Conundrum: An Empirical Analysis and Assessment Using Homicide Arrest Data from 1960 to 1999

A number of studies use the Age-Period-Cohort Characteristic (APCC) model to address the impact of cohort related factors on the age distribution of homicide offending. Several of these studies treat birth cohorts as spanning several years, an operationalization that most closely matches tenets of cohort theory, yet sharply reduces the number of observations available for analysis. Other studies define birth cohorts as those born within a single year, an operationalization that is theoretically problematic, but provides many more observations for analysis. We address the sample size problem by applying a time-series-cross-section model (panel model) with age-period-specific homicide arrest data from the United States for each year from 1960 to 1999, while operationalizing cohorts as five-year birth cohorts. Our panel model produces results that are very similar to those obtained from traditional multiyear APCC models. Substantively, the results provide a replication of work showing the importance of relative cohort size and cohort variations in family structure for explaining variations in age-period-specific homicide rates. The additional observations provided by our approach allow us to examine these relationships over time, and we find substantively important changes. The year-by-year estimates of the age distribution of homicide offending help us to examine the model during the epidemic of youth homicide.     

The Twelve Tribes' Communities,the Anti-Cult Movement,and Government's Response

The Twelve Tribes Messianic Communities are approximately 25 communities ranging in size from 30 to 120, on four continents. Since their inception 25 years ago, they have been plagued by continual attacks of the Anti-Cult Movement (ACM), originally in North America, but in recent years also in Europe. These believers live a common life of sharing in Communities according to the pattern they perceive in Acts 2 and 4 in the Bible. Despite repeated vindication in the courts, Twelve Tribes' members continue to battle to maintain the right to parent their children according to their beliefs, outside the mainstream popular culture. Antireligionists have effectively influenced governments to act against these parents, based on information that has not proved to be trustworthy evidence in court.