Suicide by Shotgun in Southeastern Minnesota

Suicide by shotgun is a common method of suicide with high regional variation. We sought to describe their distinct, challenging features and provide demographic and risk characteristics. We reviewed 228 gunshot wounds autopsied at Mayo Clinic from 1994 to 2014; of these, 75 (32.9%) were shotgun wounds. All were suicides and contact range. Ages ranged from 14 to 92 years old; of these, 97% were men. The majority involved the head (70.9%), were intraoral (48.2%), and had upward (73.2%) and backward (73.2%) directionality. Next most common was the chest (21.5%), with backward (94.1%) and downward (64.7%) directionality. Four involved multiple wounds. Wadding was recovered in 16 (21.3%) cases. Six (8.0%) had a survival period. Most (66.7%) took place at home. Seventy‐one percent had a known psychiatric history; 32.4% had positive toxicology. Although contact range shotgun wounds cause severe destruction, entrance wound and other characteristic are identifiable with thorough scene, autopsy, and radiographic documentation.     

Beyond Taphonomy: Exploring Craniometric Variation Among Anatomical Material

Anatomical crania are occasionally encountered in forensic anthropology laboratories when that material is mistaken for forensically significant human remains. Using craniometric analyses and statistical measures of sample homogeneity, we determine whether anatomical material can be described as a single, homogenous group or as a diverse mix of populations. Twenty‐one interlandmark distances were collected from 85 anatomical preparations. Distance measures were calculated between all pairs using a pooled within‐sample variance/covariance matrix and then subjected to a Defrise‐Gussenhoven test between each paired distance to test whether each pair was drawn randomly from the same population. In the Defrise‐Gussenhoven analysis, twenty‐two percent (n = 66) of the 300 pairwise combinations were significant at the 0.05 level or below. The level of homogeneity suggests a majority of that material originated from the subcontinent of India or West Asia. Therefore, anatomical material can be viewed as a moderately homogenous group, but with a shared taphonomic history.     

Appayya’s Vedānta and Nīlakaṇṭha’s Vedāntakataka

The seventeenth century author Nīlaka??ha Caturdhara wrote several works criticising the Vedāntic theology of the sixteenth century author, Appayya Dīk?ita. In one of these works, the Vedāntakataka, Nīlaka??ha picks out two doctrines for criticism: that the liberated soul becomes the Lord (ī?varabhāvāpatti), and that souls thus liberated remain the Lord until all other souls are liberated (sarvamukti). These doctrines appear both in Appayya’s Advaitin and in his ?ivādvaitin writings. They appear to be ones to which Appayya was committed. They raise theological and conceptual problems, however, both in themselves as doctrines, and as part of nondual Vedāntic teaching. A study of the Vedāntakataka reveals those features of Appayya’s Vedānta that Advaitins in Banaras in the century after his life considered to be anomalous, and illuminates aspects of the context in which his ideas developed and circulated.     

Ricochet Behavior on Glass—Critical Ricochet Angles,Ricochet Angles,and Deflection Angles

For shooting scene reconstruction purposes, knowledge about the ricochet behavior of bullets provides valuable information. In this study, the critical ricochet angles of four cartridge types were established on plain float glass. The estimates of the critical ricochet angles varied between cartridge types and were 21.0° for .32 Auto FMJ bullets, 15.8° for 9 mm Luger FMJ bullets, 17.6° for .45 Auto FMJ bullets, and 21.3° for 9 mm Luger, Action NP bullets. The corresponding ricochet and deflection angles per incidence angle varied depending on the state of the ricocheted bullets. The mean ricochet angles are always lower than the corresponding angles of incidence, and the mean ricochet angles for the FMJ bullets with undamaged jackets are lower than those of bullets where the jacket is either damaged or the bullet partially ricocheted and partially perforated. Mean ricochet angles are lower for undamaged FMJ bullets than for undamaged Action NP bullets.     

On the Social Foundations for Crimmigration: Latino Threat and Support for Expanded Police Powers

Objectives

Because of the merging of immigration control and criminal justice, or “crimmigration,” state and local police increasingly drive interior immigration enforcement through the routine policing of crime. At the same time, growing evidence indicates that immigration is an ethnicity-coded issue that allows for the veiled expression of broader anti-Latino sentiments. Yet little research has examined whether public perceptions of either immigrants or Latinos influence support for police policies and practices that, in the context of crimmigration, may significantly shape immigration enforcement and, more broadly, may contribute to the subordination of Latinos. The current study addresses this research question.

Methods

The study draws on data from a recent nationally representative telephone survey and employs multivariate regression methods to evaluate whether perceptions of Latino economic and political threat are associated with support for granting police greater latitude in stopping, searching, and using force against suspects.

Results

This study provides the first evidence that, at least among Whites, perceived Latino threat is positively associated with support for expanding police investigative powers, especially the power to stop suspects based only on the way they look.

Conclusions

The results suggest that by increasing public support for aggressive policing, or, at minimum, by reducing opposition to discriminatory social controls such as police profiling, Latino threat perceptions may increase the political attractiveness and viability of crimmigration as a “solution” to the “Latino problem.”

     

A legal perspective on university technology transfer

In the thirty-five years after passage of the Bayh–Dole Act of 1980, a robust literature has documented the emergence of university technology transfer as a critical mechanism for the dissemination and commercialization of new technology stemming from federally-funded research. Missing from these investigations, however, is what this paper terms the legal perspective, an understanding of how the law and its attendant mechanisms impact university technology transfer. Specifically, the paper reviews the extant legal scholarship and provides examples of how case law, legal structures, and the unique nature of intellectual property law affects technology transfer, as well as higher education policy and management. Throughout, we propose critical questions for future investigation, which serve to form a cross-disciplinary research agenda that can contribute fresh insights to scholarly and policy discussions related to the role of universities in economic and social development.     

Legal History and the Problem of the Long Civil Rights Movement

This essay offers a critical examination of use of the term “long civil rights movement” as a framework for understanding the legal history of the battle against racial inequality in twentieth‐century America. Proponents of the long movement argue that expanding the chronological boundaries of the movement beyond the 1950s and 1960s allows scholars to better capture the diverse social mobilization efforts and ideas that fueled the black freedom struggle. While not questioning the long framework's usefulness for studying the social movement dynamics of racial justice activism, I suggest that the long framework is of more limited value for those who seek to understand the development of civil rights, as a legal claim, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century. The tendency of long movement scholars to treat civil rights as a pliable category into which they can put any and all racial justice claims is in tension with historical understandings of the term. Susan Carle's Defining the Struggle: National Organizing for Racial Justice, 1880–1915 suggests an alternative approach. Her detailed and nuanced account of a period in American history when racial justice activists understood civil rights as a relatively narrow subset of legal remedies within a much broader struggle for racial equality indicates the need for an alternate history of civil rights—one that places the evolving, contested, and historically particularized concept of civil rights at the center of inquiry.     

The right to be forgotten – private law enforcement

Private law enforcement of the right to be forgotten should be considered in light of the general characteristics of private law. This highlights advantages and limitations, and underlines the need to explicate the actual interests involved in the right to be forgotten. As case law and real-life examples show, enforcement is mostly feasible but may be costly. The right to be forgotten is most effective against large, bona fide corporations. This analysis provides a more realistic view of the possibilities of private law enforcement of newly proclaimed rights.     

Risky Business: Behavioral Profiles of Sexually-Impulsive Adults in the United States

The goal of the present study is to clarify the heterogeneity of risky behaviors (such as substance use, gambling, and crime) and psychiatric disorders among a large sample of 5304 nationally representative adults who acknowledge engaging in sexually-impulsive behaviors. Participants were selected from more than 43,000 respondents of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). Latent class analysis was used to identify subgroups of sexually-impulsive individuals and then multinomial regression was used to identify the relative risk for comorbidity with related impulsive behaviors or psychiatric disorders. Results showed that a four class solution provided the best fit and revealed higher odds of experiencing specific comorbid risky behaviors or psychiatric disorders based on class membership. Results challenge the widely held notion that self-regulatory behaviors are impacted globally, and instead suggest that certain self-regulatory behaviors are more likely to be impacted when other underlying conditions are present in sexually-impulsive individuals. Implications of this heterogeneity and recommendations for health care providers are discussed.