故意杀人罪中被害人过错对量刑的影响

刑法意义上的被害人过错有其特定的内涵,本文从互动论、谴责性降低理论和量刑理论三方面论证了被害人过错在故意杀人罪中的量刑意义,同时参照域外刑法的相关规定,分析我国量刑现状对司法活动造成的消极影响,从而指出将被害人过错在故意杀人罪中量刑法定化的必要性。     

肖志军案中的刑法难题和价值取向——不作为、因果关系与间接故意之新界

丈夫拒绝签字导致妻子死亡的行为属于间接故意杀人。肖志军因具有法定的救助义务而成立不作为;刑法应偏向患者利益,在医疗领域中采用风险增高理论来判断因果关系;在拒签时,肖志军认识到了妻子死亡的具体危险性,这决定了他属于间接故意的杀人。在社会救助体制缺失时,刑法期待通过强化个人责任而确立"全力救助患者生命"的价值导向。     

Alcohol-Related Mortality Risk in Natural and Non-Natural Death Cases

Abstract:  Determination of the associations between alcohol influence and sudden natural death represents challenges for medicolegal investigations. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of alcohol influence in medicolegal autopsies. In our study of natural and non-natural deaths cases (5496 total: 4045 males, 1451 females) were examined. Blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) were detected by headspace gas chromatographic method. We investigated the alcohol-related mortality using hierarchical log-linear statistical models. Severe BACs were detected among suicidal victims in the oldest age group (>65 years) (In F  = 0.442) and among the homicide victims between the age of 40–65 years (In F  = 0.234). Correlations we found between manner-of-death and sex suggested that the rate of males in accidents (ln F  = 0.140) and the rate of females in homicides (ln F  = 0.193) were higher. It was concluded that the accurate statistical mortality database may provide a huge support for the determination of alcohol effects on human health and mortality.     

Body Disposal Patterns of Sexual Murderers: Implications for Offender Profiling

Offender profiling postulates that crime scene behavior should predict certain offender characteristics. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between offender characteristics, situational factors, and body disposal patterns. Sequential logistic regression analysis on a sample of 85 sexual murderers shows that those who were in a relationship at the time of the crime and who present organized psychological characteristics are more likely to move the victim’s body after the homicide. However, when the victim is older and a conflict with the offender occurred prior to the crime, the body is more likely to be left at the crime scene. Implications for offender profiling are discussed in light of the results.

Putting homicide followed by suicide in context: Do macro‐environmental characteristics impact the odds of committing suicide after homicide?*

Homicide followed by suicide remains an understudied phenomenon in the criminological literature. This is due, in part, to methodological and statistical limitations—much of the extant research includes small samples and has not kept pace with quantitative advances. Moreover, scholarship on homicide–suicide has been focused almost exclusively on individual risk factors, discounting contextual influences. In this study, we examine whether macro‐environmental characteristics affect the odds of suicide after a homicide. We use data on 24,373 homicide and homicide–suicide cases distributed across 3,019 cities and 48 U.S. states from the National Violent Death Reporting System to examine the direct effects of structural factors on the odds of suicide after a homicide; and whether structural characteristics condition the impact of the victim–offender relationship on the odds of homicide–suicide. Hierarchical logistic regression models indicate that macro‐level concentrated disadvantage decreases the odds of homicide–suicide. Furthermore, concentrated disadvantage attenuates the odds of suicide after the homicide of an intimate partner, child, family member, or friend, relative to the killing of a stranger. The findings reveal that researchers should account for the context in which homicide–suicide occurs; failure to do so may unintentionally discount a key correlate of homicide–suicide and artificially inflate the effects of the micro‐environment.     

Disaggregating Mass Public Shootings: A Comparative Analysis of Disgruntled Employee,School, Ideologically motivated,and Rampage Shooters

This study compares the demographic, background, motivation, and pre‐event and event‐level behaviors across four types of mass public shooters: disgruntled employee, school, ideologically motivated, and rampage offenders. Using a database containing detailed information on 318 mass public shootings that occurred in the United States between 1966 and 2017, we find systematic differences in the characteristics, motivations, target selection, planning, and incident‐level behaviors among these offenders. The results show that ideologically motivated shooters to be the most patient, and methodical, and as a result the most lethal. Conversely, disgruntled employees, who are driven by revenge, tend to have little time to plan and consequently are the least lethal shooters. These, among other differences, underscore the need for prevention strategies and policies to be tailored to specific types of offenders. Furthermore, the results also highlight commonalities across offender type, suggesting that the social and psychological pathways to violence are universal across offenders.     

Cold Case Homicides: DNA Testing of Retained Autopsy Sexual Assault Smears

Archival medical examiner specimens may contain perpetrator DNA evidence useful in unsolved (“cold case”) homicides. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) histology slide archives were searched for sexual assault smears for all 376 female homicides from 1990 to 1999. Of these, the OCME had sexual assault smears on 84 of which 13 slides had sperm. Of these 13, six were still unsolved. DNA profiles were obtained on all six (5 from smears and one from swabs). Combined DNA Index System ( submission resulted in two matches (“hits”) for new suspects. In addition, three suspects were eliminated in two cases. Our review of archival sexual assault smears resulted in DNA profiles that were able to assist in the investigation of four cold case homicide investigations. It may be worthwhile for medical examiner offices to search their archival histology slides for sexual assault smears on previously unsolved cases particularly those prior to the mid‐1990s when DNA testing was less widely available.     

Sanctuary Policies and City-Level Incidents of Violence, 1990 to 2010

Despite media coverage of isolated incidents of violent crime perpetuated by undocumented immigrants in cities with sanctuary policies, there is scant systematic research on the relationships between the adoption of sanctuary policies, unauthorized immigration, and crime. We compile city-level data from official sources and use fixed-effects negative binomial regression to examine whether the adoption of city-level sanctuary policies and the concentration of unauthorized Mexican immigrants are associated with homicide and robbery incidents in 107 U.S. cities, across three decades. We find evidence that the adoption of sanctuary policies is associated with a reduction in robberies but not homicide. In contrast, an increase in the relative size of a city’s unauthorized Mexican immigrant population corresponds with a reduction in homicide; however, only in sanctuary cities. Lastly, shifts in violence during our study period are consistently related to social structural characteristics of cities, which are findings consistent with social disorganization theory.     

Personality traits in suicidal and homicidal subjects with schizophrenia

Paranoid schizophrenia is characterised by an increased risk of suicide and homicide. Little is known about the influence of personality dimensions as determinants for suicidal and homicidal behaviour within this condition. We assessed the differences among suicidal, homicidal and non-aggressive adult male in-patients with ICD-10 paranoid schizophrenia. The clinical assessments included structured psychiatric interviews and reports on harmful alcohol use and suicide attempts. The personality dimensions were assessed with the Big Five Inventory-10. The study recruited 264 patients divided into three groups: suicide attempters (N = 62), homicide group (N = 70), and a comparative control group (N = 132). To examine how the clinical subgroups differed from the comparative sample in the studied variables, a multinomial regression was performed. Each subgroup was considered a nominal outcome variable and the log odds of the outcomes were modelled as a linear combination of the predictor variables. Neuroticism or emotional instability was the only personality dimension that was different among the study subgroups: a lower level of neuroticism was found in the homicide group. Other risk factors such as age, education, relationship status and history of self-aggressive behaviour could potentially distinguish these subgroups of paranoid schizophrenia patients.     

Biastophilia,raptophilia, and somnophilia: the blurred distinction and comorbidity of sexual paraphilias in a homicidal offender

Somnophilia has previously been recognised by some as a sleep disorder rather than, correctly, as a sexual paraphilic disorder. Correct recognition, however, then necessitates cognisance of the overlap between somnophilia and arousal to rape and sexually violent acts (biastophilia and raptophilia). Such overlap needs to be recognised by clinicians when the ramifications of the comorbidity and intersection of these paraphilias, left unchecked, can stretch as far as homicide.