Predicting Institutional Violence among Death Row Inmates: The Utility of the Sorensen and Pilgrim Model

The (Sorensen and Pilgrim, An actuarial risk assessment of violence posed by capital murder defendants. J Crim Law Criminol 90:1251–1270, 2000) actuarial model was developed to predict institutional violence among life-sentenced murderers. However, despite its presentation at capital sentencing, the model has not been validated on death row inmates specifically. This study examined the association between Sorensen and Pilgrim model scores and five types of institutional violence (serious assaults, minor assaults, verbal assault/threats, prison order offenses, and non-violent infractions) among a sample of 155 individuals who had been incarcerated on death row in Texas. Results revealed that risk scores performed better for non-violent infractions than for serious assaults, calling into question the utility of this measure for capital sentencing evaluations.

在死亡中追求永生——水族"控拟"葬仪的人类学考察

本文从文化人类学视角,通过对贵州省都匀市基场乡一个典型水族村寨——翁降村一次"控拟"葬仪的田野调查描述,着重探讨这一祭祀过程中的"祭祀的组织"、"铜鼓与水牛"、"祭祀的禁忌"、"祭祀的消费"等方面问题。文章认为,水族这一传统葬仪源于水族原始宗教信仰中的祖灵崇拜,是水族人追求生命永生的具体表现。     

对美国死刑案件诉讼程序的考察

美国是西方发达资本主义国家中保留并且适用死刑最多的国家,其对死刑案件设置了严格的诉讼程序,如特殊的死刑的诉讼提请批准程序、大陪审团制度、“人身保护令”制度、死刑执行方式等,以期最大限度地避免出现错判、误判的死刑,保障公民的生命权。这对我国的死刑案件诉讼程序改革具有重要的借鉴意义。     

“已满七十五周岁不适用死刑”条款的理解适用

无论是采用“广义说”还是“狭义说”来界定,都可能会指：只要是在审判阶段属于“已满七十五周岁的人”即可,都不会影响对“已满七十五周岁的人”的认定范围。“已满七十五周岁”的立法依据是以平均寿命来综合考虑的。如果将“以特别残忍手段致人死亡”修改为“情节特别恶劣”,这无疑是扩大了免死的限制条件范围,也却相应地也缩小了“已满七十五周岁的人,不适用死刑”的范围。     

论严格限制死刑的适用

随着社会的不断进步与文明的不断发展,刑事制裁中的轻刑化逐渐被人们所接受。死刑作为一个最严厉的刑种,经过漫长的历史演变,形成了今天比较完备的制度。我国现行的刑法典正确贯彻了慎用死刑的原则,体现了刑罚制度的进步和发展,为了更加严格地限制死刑的适用,我国应在立法上和司法上作出一些有益的改革。     

论死刑不引渡原则

《中西引渡条约》作为我国与欧美发达国家签署的第一个引渡条约,第一次包含了死刑不引渡原则的条款。死刑不引渡原则是现代引渡制度中的一项重要原则。死刑不引渡原则,是指当被请求国有理由相信被引渡人在引渡后可能被请求国判处或执行死刑拒绝予以引渡的原则,此原则中引渡人可能被判处死刑,不仅包括已经被依法判处死刑的人,也包括可能被判处死刑的犯罪嫌疑人。     

Communicating sociocultural norms and social and religious practices in Iranian death notices

Drawing on a corpus of 100 randomly collected death notices published in an Iranian national newspaper, this study examined generic structures as well as their lexico-grammatical patterning to reveal what communicative functions are articulated by these generic components. Basing our identification of moves on Swales [1990. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press], we identified 12 rhetorical moves in the corpus. We illustrated that these recurrent rhetorical moves reflect the Iranian sociocultural norms, as well as social and religious beliefs. Also, the results substantiated [Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. 1996. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge] multimodality perspective on textual analysis in that they rejected linguistic items as the only meaning-making device and identified colour, position, photo and size, among others, as worthwhile veritable semiotic devices.     

A comparison of pulmonary intra-alveolar hemorrhage in cases of sudden infant death due to SIDS in a safe sleep environment or to suffocation

The differentiation of SIDS from accidental or inflicted suffocation may be impossible without corroborating findings from the death scene or autopsy or in the absence of a confession from a perpetrator. Pulmonary intra-alveolar hemorrhage (PH) has been proposed as a potential clue to suffocation, but none of the previous studies on this topic have limited SIDS cases to those who were in a safe sleep environment, in which all were found supine and alone on a firm surface with their heads uncovered. Our aims are to: (1) compare PH in SIDS cases found in a safe sleep environment to a control group comprised of infants whose deaths were attributed to accidental or inflicted suffocation and (2) assess the effect of age, CPR, and postmortem interval (PMI), with regard to the severity of PH in this subset of safe-sleeping SIDS cases. We conducted a retrospective study of all postneonatal cases accessioned by the Office of the Medical Examiner in San Diego County, California who died of SIDS or suffocation between 1999 and 2004. A total of 74 cases of sudden infant death caused by SIDS (34 cases as defined above, comprising 8% of the total SIDS cases), accidental suffocation (37), and inflicted suffocation (3) from the San Diego SIDS/SUDC Research Project database were compared using a semiquantitative measure of pulmonary intra-alveolar hemorrhage. The most severe (grade 3 or 4) PH occurred in 35% of deaths attributed to suffocation, but in only 9% of the SIDS cases. Age, duration of CPR attempts and PMI had no effect on the severity of PH in SIDS. Our results indicate that the severity of PH cannot be used independently to differentiate SIDS from suffocation deaths. Each case must be evaluated on its own merits after thorough review of the medical history, circumstances of death, and postmortem findings.     

Airway obstruction by laryngeal masses in sudden and homicidal deaths

We present two cases of autopsy detection of laryngeal masses with medico-legal implications. The first is a 56-year-old man who died suddenly of asphyxia due to upper airway obstruction caused by a large glosso-epiglottic retention cyst and glottic oedema. Hypothesis of medical liability was raised, due to delayed tracheotomy as the result of repeated failed attempts at oral intubation by various physicians. Difficult oral intubation due to the presence of a laryngeal mass in an asphyxiating subject requires rapid tracheotomy. The second case deals with a 43-year-old woman who died of asphyxia due to airway obstruction, as a result of injury of a cavernous laryngeal haemangioma after homicidal manual strangulation, with severe haemorrhagic infiltration of the surrounding soft tissues. Damage to laryngeal/hypopharyngeal masses should be considered as a possible sign of manual strangulation, as well as neck skin bruises/abrasions and laryngeal haemorrhages.