Cesare Beccaria: Utilitarian or retributivist?

Ever since Cesare Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments first appeared in 1764, it has been common to regard its author as a theorist of criminal jurisprudence who stressed considerations of utility to the exclusion of considerations of justice. There is strong evidence for this view, and Beccaria was in many ways a forerunner of Bentham. There is, however, another side to Beccaria that has often been overlooked. In the way in which he established the right of the sovereign to punish and in his concern for the rights of the criminal (rights which no consideration of utility could override), Beccaria showed that he was much closer to the outlook commonly associated with Kant and Hegel than one would at first suspect. Though there were utilitarian aspects to his thought, Beccaria may be considered basically a retributivist who incorporated certain obvious, though by no means dominant, utilitarian themes into his work. In blending utilitarianism and retributivism, Beccaria was usually consistent, and he usually gave greater emphasis to the former.     

RESOURCE ALLOCATION IN LEGAL SERVICES: Individual Attorney Decisions in Work Priorities

This article explores the issues of professional decision-making in legal resource allocation by examining theoretical models of professional decision-making, and applying them in the provision of legal services for the poor. Data collected from time sheets completed by attorneys in an urban legal services program suggest the relative importance of bureaucratic, external, client-centered, ideology, personal, and role concept factors in allocating time for practice routines. The implications of these findings for the rational (i.e., cost benefit) determination of the value of legal services are discussed.     

Serum levels of digoxin in sudden cardiac deaths

Digoxin was determined in postmortem serum samples from 100 patients who died suddenly of cardiac disease. Twenty patients had digoxin levels below the therapeutic range. Twenty-one patients had normal values within the therapeutic range (1.2-2.5 nmol/l). In ten cases there was probably an overdosage. Another 15 patients had markedly elevated levels. No digoxin concentration was found (below 0.5 nmol/l) in 34 patients. The importance of determination of digoxin levels both by the clinician and the pathologist is stressed as well as the necessity of using a correct sampling technique at autopsy.