Medical diagnosis of legal culpability: the impact of early psychiatric testimony in the 19th century English criminal trial

Fast-paced developments in psychiatry, neuroscience and emerging neuroimaging technologies place continual pressure on the legal recognition of mental illness and disease across jurisdictional boundaries. Nevertheless, the Canadian legal definition of exculpatory mental disease in the context of criminal liability has remained largely static, sheltered from the immediate influence of medical theory and advancements. In order to effectively reflect on the intersection of mental health and criminal justice systems in this area, it is important to understand its historical development and the English common law origins of the current approach. Specifically turning to the early 19th century, documented history and accounts of early medical witness testimony on the mental state of the accused provide a unique opportunity to understand the initial collision between fundamental concepts of moral and legal culpability and new scientific understandings of mental function and disease. In this article, I suggest that early psychiatric testimony to the accused's mental state challenged the evolving criminal law of 19th century England to reconcile its restrictive definition of "insanity" with expanding scientific reasoning and accounts of mental disease. The trial of Edward Oxford, an attempted royal assassination case of 1840, is examined as a symbolic height in this conflict prior to the first common law pronouncement of the current approach in 1843. As debate continues on the role of medical advancement in the identification of exculpatory medical disorders in law, this historical perspective may serve as a touchstone in balancing the enforcement of legal culpability with our society's greater appreciation for mental illness.     

An exploration of testamentary behaviour in twentieth-century Ireland

This article highlights trends in testamentary behaviour in modern Ireland derived from registers of probate cases. Primary findings show a consistently high level of intestacy in modern Ireland. It argues that such rates were more closely related to popular perceptions rather than an understanding of succession law. It also highlights that while real property was not normally divided pre-mortem transfer of non-fixed assets complicated efforts to understand how estates devolved. Testamentary behaviour also shifted significantly in favour of pious bequests in the period under review.     

As easy as A, B and C: will A, B and C v. Ireland be Ireland's wake-up call for abortion rights?

This article examines the development of Ireland's abortion policy from 1861 to the present day. It explores the reasoning for this policy as well as the inherent problems with this policy. It examines in detail the A, B and C v. Ireland judgement and its impact, (if any) on Irish abortion law. Finally, it discusses the margin of appreciation doctrine used by the European Court of Human Rights in deciding cases of a moral nature.     

Maternal Emotion Socialization Mediates the Relationship between Maternal and Adolescent Negative Emotionality

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Parents and children with high negative emotionality may be more likely to provide and receive non-supportive contingencies, respectively. However, no study has...     

Inside the university technology transfer office: mission statement analysis

The focus of our paper is to qualitatively explore the mission statements components of university TTOs using Pearce and David’s (Acad Manag Exec 1(2):109–115, 1987) eight components. Mission statements are the organization’s central defining purpose and focus. In essence an organizations’ raison d’etre. Given the growing importance of the role TTOs now play, understanding components of mission statements is timely, particularly during the first phase of TTO developments. To provide insights concerning these issues our study is set in the Republic of Ireland, which has one of the top performing university and public research organization technology transfer system within the European Union. Using Pearce and David (1987) well established eight mission statement components we analyzed seven Irish university TTO mission statements. We also conducted quantitative analysis on the number of mission statement components and selected variables. We found that university TTO mission statements focused primarily on two mission components—target customers and markets and principal services. From our quantitative analysis we found moderate positive correlations between patents granted and number of mission statement components. Furthermore we found there was a positive correlation between grants granted outside of Ireland and the number of mission components. Our results, albeit they are tempered by a small sample of data, have pertinent implications for TTOs.     

Infant life Protection and Medico-Legal Literacy in Early Twentieth-century Dublin

At the turn of the twentieth century, the infant mortality rate in Dublin city was higher than that of London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Political concerns about the health of nations coupled with the work of child protection campaigners gave rise to a sense of panic across the Anglophone world and caused an increase in the surveillance of the body of the child. While a combination of poor sanitation and inadequate feeding could account for the majority of deaths, single motherhood and the fringes of childcare were treated as flashpoints by local authorities, police and philanthropists, as well as religious, medical and legal personnel alike. Sensationalised newspaper reports played a crucial part in raising public awareness about the infant crisis, and it is for such reasons that this article focuses on the extraordinary case of Mrs Sarah T., who was accused of what was colloquially known as ‘baby-farming’ in Dublin in 1905. The case is used as a prism to examine how the infant life protection campaign contributed to the shaping of ‘medico-legal literacy’ in Ireland. The article focuses on post neonatal infants, aged over one month, to question the degree to which lower socio-economic circumstances precipitated excess mortality or if Church/State encroachment on family life and parental rights exposed already vulnerable infants to more pernicious risks associated with micro-epidemics, particularly in relation to tuberculosis.     

African American Adolescent Engagement in the Classroom and Beyond: The Roles of Mother’s Racial Socialization and Democratic-Involved Parenting

Previous research has explored how differential youth outcomes are associated with racial socialization and parenting style individually, but very little work has examined whether democratic-involved parenting style bolsters the positive link between racial messages and adolescent outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine mothers’ use of democratic-involved parenting as a moderator of the association between racial socialization (e.g., racial pride, racial barrier, and self-worth messages) and youth engagement. The types of engagement explored were attitudes toward class work and persistence on task. Ninety-four African American youth (ages 11–14) reported on maternal style and socialization. As predicted, racial barrier socialization was positively associated with engagement among adolescents who perceived their mothers to provide more involvement coupled with opportunities for their teens to make decisions. In contrast, barrier socialization and engagement were negatively associated among adolescents who viewed their mothers as low in democratic-involved parenting. Implications for adolescent engagement and for research on racial socialization and democratic-involved parenting style are discussed.

The Dublin Regulation,mutual trust and fundamental rights: No exceptionality for children?

Mutual trust in the Dublin III Regulation is justified by the assumption that all Member States respect the fundamental rights of asylum seekers and that it is therefore immaterial which Member State processes any given claim. This justification has been questioned in light of the treatment of asylum seekers in some Member States. Nonetheless, in order to circumvent a Dublin transfer on fundamental rights grounds, the Court of Justice of the EU has held that the risked violation must meet the threshold for inhuman or degrading treatment in Article 4 of the Charter. Recently, the Court rejected the proposition that another Charter right—the principle of the best interests of the child—could block Dublin transfers of families with children. Through a child-rights analysis of the jurisprudence, this article explores the idea of exceptionality for children, concluding that there is potential for the best interests principle to trump mutual trust.