Law and Speed: Asylum Appeals and the Techniques and Consequences of Legal Quickening

This article examines how a politics of speed is manifest in a legal context via a detailed ethnography of the French National Court of Asylum (CNDA). It identifies the temporal, spatial, and organizational ordering techniques that characterize asylum appeals in France and discusses the consequences of these techniques for the way in which the appeal process is experienced by legal decision makers and subjects. It reveals adverse impacts of legal quickening on legal quality, in particular through identifying: ‘cracks’ in the performance of legal roles like lawyer and judge that begin to appear when law is executed rapidly and repetitively; dwindling opportunities to demonstrate and experience respect between parties; and the ‘thinning-out’ of legal process, as heuristics rather than deliberation come to dominate legal reasoning. The article contributes to a burgeoning body of socio-legal literature on law and time by establishing the negative impact of excessive legal quickening on role performance, respect, and legal quality.     

Validation of the barcoding gene COI for use in forensic genetic species identification

The application of forensics to wildlife crime investigation routinely involves genetic species identification based on DNA sequence similarity. This work can be hindered by a lack of authenticated reference DNA sequence data resulting in weak matches between evidence and reference samples. The introduction of DNA barcoding has highlighted the expanding use of the mtDNA gene, cytochrome c oxidase I (COI), as a genetic marker for species identification. Here, we assess the COI gene for use in forensic analysis following published human validation guidelines. Validation experiments investigated reproducibility, heteroplasmy, mixed DNA, DNA template concentration, chemical treatments, substrate variation, environmental conditions and thermocycling parameters. Sequence similarity searches using both GenBank BLASTn and BOLD search engines indicated that the COI gene consistently identifies species where authenticated reference sequence data exists. Where misidentification occurred the cause was attributable to either erroneous reference sequences from published data, or lack of primer specificity. Although amplification failure was observed under certain sample treatments, there was no evidence of environmentally induced sequence mutation in those sequences that were generated. A simulated case study compared the performance of COI and cytochrome b mtDNA genes. Findings are discussed in relation to the utility of the COI gene in forensic species identification.     

Verapamil toxicity: an unusual case report and review of the literature

Verapamil blocks the rapid influx of calcium into the cardiac myocytes of the cardiac conduction system and smooth muscle of the vasculature, resulting in decreased myocardial contractility, prolonged conduction time, and vascular relaxation. A sustained-release form, verapamil SR (or ER), is available that contains higher levels of medication and requires only once-daily dosing. The majority of reported fatal cases of verapamil toxicity are due to massive, intentional overdoses. Herein, we present an unusual case of fatal verapamil SR toxicity in a 57-year-old female that resulted from accidental overdose of only 3 tablets (720 mg), as witnessed by the decedent's daughter. In spite of the low dose ingested, the postmortem cardiac blood verapamil level was clearly toxic (6000 ng/mL, or 6 mg/L). Her preexisting medical conditions included hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, iron deficiency anemia, diabetes mellitus, and associated mild chronic renal failure. Complicating factors, which likely include the decedent's preexisting renal and cardiac disease, and a review of the available literature will be discussed.     

Acute deaths in nonpregnant adults due to invasive streptococcal infections

Streptococcal organisms, part of the normal human bacterial flora, occasionally become infectious pathogens responsible for a wide array of clinical syndromes, ranging from mild pharyngitis to death. Notably, infections due to group A and group B beta-hemolytic strains are well known for causing invasive disease leading to death. These deaths, while often suspected clinically, occasionally are not diagnosed until autopsy. We present 3 rapid deaths, with very different presentations, due to streptococcal infection. Two decedents experienced sudden deaths due to pneumonia and severe meningoencephalitis caused by group B beta-hemolytic streptococcal infection, a common cause of neonatal meningitis but only rarely reported in nonpregnant adults. The final case involves a 69-year-old male who presented to the emergency room with a complaint of shoulder pain but over the next several hours developed signs of necrotizing fasciitis, became septic, and died. While antemortem cultures were negative, owing to antibiotic administration, postmortem cultures of bone and deep soft tissue were positive for group A beta-hemolytic Streptococcus sp. Acute and sudden deaths due to infectious etiology represent an uncommon yet well-documented occurrence. The importance of appropriate postmortem cultures in these situations and a review of the literature will be discussed.     

Justice: Plain Old and Distributive: Rejoinder to Charles Taylor

This paper argues that the views of Charles Taylor on justice in income and wealth distribution are fallacious, especially in regard to issues such as private property rights, justice, human rights, and theft. As to this last point, Taylor maintains it is possible, under certain circumstances, to “legitimately steal.” We regard this as a philosophical howler of the first order. We also demur from his contention that equity and equality can be used as synonyms.

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Informative Committees and Legislative Performance in the American States

The information theory of legislative organization suggests that legislative committees are designed to provide their parent chamber with necessary information to legislate. Despite empirical evidence for various aspects of the theory, we have limited knowledge of committees’ influence on legislative outputs. I argue that informative committees are more than information providers, that they also substantively impact legislative outcomes. With supportive evidence from the US state legislatures, this article shows that the presence of an informative committee system not only lowers the number of bills introduced to the legislature but also enhances the chamber's efficiency in transforming legislative proposals into laws.