Radiation safety for the NOMAD portable X-ray system in a temporary morgue setting

The purpose of this study was to determine the radiation levels resulting from leakage and scatter encountered by the forensic dental personnel using the Nomad at St. Gabriel, LA, following Hurricane Katrina. Using a Keithley Radiation Survey Meter and Lucite head phantom, radiation levels were measured at various distances and angles from the Nomad corresponding to the positions occupied by the dental personnel at St. Gabriel. The measurements were used to approximate the maximum total radiation dose from the Nomad to each team member for a 2- and a 4-week deployment. The results show that the maximum scatter radiation dose to any team member was 4.4 microR per X-ray or 0.253 millisieverts (mSv) for a 2-week deployment and 0.506 mSv for a 4-week deployment. Therefore, the leakage and scatter radiation dose from the Nomad was insignificant compared with established radiation safety guidelines of 50 mSv per year for all team members.     

The Rule of Law or the Rule of Politics? Harmonizing the Internal and External Views of Supreme Court Decision Making

Law professors and political scientists generally subscribe to opposed theories of Supreme Court decision making. Law professors, to a great degree, adhere to an internal view: Supreme Court justices decide cases according to legal rules, principles, and precedents. Political scientists follow an external view: justices decide cases according to their political ideologies or preferences. This article develops an interpretive-structural theory that harmonizes these seemingly opposed views. This interpretive-structural theory not only explains why the internal and external views often are both effective but also why, sometimes, one approach might be more effective than the other. The article concludes by comparing the interpretive-structural theory with the "new institutionalism" that is emerging in political science.     

An Interpretation of Max Weber's Theory of Law: Metaphysics, Economics, and the Iron Cage of Constitutional Law

Among legal scholars, Anthony T. Kronman and David M. Trubek have provided the leading interpretations of Weber's theory of law. Kronman and Trubek agree on two important points: Weber's theory is fundamentally contradictory, and Weber's theory relates primarily to private law subjects such as contracts. This article contests both of these points. Building on a foundation of Weber's neo-Kantian metaphysics and his sociological categories of economic action, this article shows that Weber's theory of law is not fundamentally inconsistent; rather it explores the inconsistencies that are inherent within Western society itself, including its legal systems. Furthermore, Weber's insights can be applied to modern constitutional jurisprudence. Weberian theory reveals that modern constitutional law is riddled with irreconcilable tensions between process and substance—between formal and substantive rationality. In the context of racial discrimination cases involving equal protection and the Fifteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court's acceptance of John Hart Ely's theory of representation-reinforcement demonstrates the Court's resolute pursuit of formal rationality, which insures that the substantive values and needs of minorities will remain unsatisfied.     

The Hand Rule and United States v. Carroll Towing Co. Reconsidered

Judge Learned Hand’s opinion in United States v. CarrollTowing Co. (1947) is canonized in the law-and-economics literatureas the first use of cost-benefit analysis for determining negligenceand assigning liability. This article revisits the case in whichthe Hand formula was born and examines whether Judge Hand’sruling in that case would provide correct incentives for efficientlevels of precaution. We argue that the negligence test as usedby Judge Hand is somewhat different from the Hand test as usedby modern law-and-economics theorists. With a game theoreticanalysis of the case, we show that Judge Hand’s negligencetest could in fact produce games with inefficient equilibria,or with liability determinations opposite Judge Hand’s.