August 2017 - Page 27 of 30 - searchfortruth.info

Amnesia and Crime

February 14, 2019August 5, 2017 by admin

Amnesia for serious offenses has important legal implications, particularly regarding its relevance in the contexts of competency to stand trial and criminal responsibility. Forensic psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are often required to provide expert testimony regarding amnesia in defendants. However, the diagnosis of amnesia presents a challenge, as claims of memory impairment may stem from organic disease, dissociative amnesia, amnesia due to a psychotic episode, or malingered amnesia. We review the theoretical, clinical, and legal perspectives on amnesia in relation to crime and present relevant cases that demonstrate several types of crime-related amnesia and their legal repercussions. Consideration of the presenting clinical features of crimerelated amnesia may enable a fuller understanding of the different types of amnesia and assist clinicians in the medico-legal assessment and diagnosis of the claimed memory impairment. The development of a profile of aspects characteristic of crime-related amnesia would build toward establishing guidelines for the assessment of amnesia in legal contexts.

The Gay Panic Defense

February 13, 2019August 5, 2017 by admin

INTRODUCTION

Americans today have mixed feelings about homosexuality. A 2007 Gallup/USA poll found that while 48% of those polled felt homosexuality was an acceptable alternative lifestyle, 46% felt the opposite way. Another 2007 poll found that 51% of those polled thought homosexual behavior is morally wrong, and only 35% felt homosexual behavior is acceptable. Americans are also deeply divided over whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry.

While there is more acceptance of lesbians and gays today compared to just a few years ago, gays and lesbians still experience a significant amount of prejudice and discrimination. Approximately three quarters of gays and lesbians have been the target of verbal abuse and approximately one-third have been the target of physical violence based on their sexual orientation. Violence against gays and lesbians is a problem even in cities with sizable gay and lesbian populations. In a survey of young adults in the San Francisco Bay Area, “almost 1 in

Alcoholic Blackout for Criminally Relevant Behavior

February 13, 2019August 5, 2017 by admin

Some criminal suspects claim to have had an alcohol-induced blackout during crimes they have committed. Are alcoholic blackouts a frequently occurring phenomenon, or are they merely used as an excuse to minimize responsibility? Frequency and type of blackout were surveyed retrospectively in two healthy samples (n 256 and n 100). Also, a comparison of blood alcohol concentrations was made between people who did and those who did not claim a blackout when stopped in a traffic-control study (n 100). In the two survey studies, blackouts were reported frequently by the person himself (or herself) and others (67% and 76%, respectively) in contrast to the traffic-control study (14%), in which blackouts were reported only when persons were involved in an accident. These results indicate that although blackouts during serious misbehavior are reported outside the court, both the denial and the claim of alcoholic blackout may serve a strategic function.

The following vignette is based on a real case. Amsterdam, 1999. A 30-year-old man consumed a considerable

Trial Technology PowerPoint Jury Instructions

February 13, 2019August 5, 2017 by admin

When I started discussing my experience giving jury instructions by PowerPoint, one of my colleagues blurted out, “I’m not sure I see the point. If you want them to fol‑ low along, why not just give them each a set of typed instructions to read while you’re reading them out loud? . . . I find PowerPoint unspeakably boring and oppressive. It’s generally an indulgence that hinders rather than promotes communications. It’s a bit like being forced to watch your neighbor’s two-hour slide show following a vacation.” My colleague then defiantly inquired: “How do you know the jurors liked it? . . . I hated the PowerPoint presentation I was forced to watch when I was a juror, but no one ever asked me. No doubt the lawyer who used it will claim that jurors like it.” Well, it seems that my colleague really gave me a piece of his mind on the intrusion of PowerPoint into his life.

Additional Resource: Court Technology Framework | National Center for State Courts

Courthouse: Courtroom | WBDG - Whole Building Design Guide

Relief From The Collateral Consequences Of A Criminal Conviction

February 13, 2019August 5, 2017 by admin

This work is the first complete survey of U.S. laws and practices that overcome or mitigate the collateral legal consequences of a criminal conviction. It begins with short analytical pieces on executive pardon, judicial expungement and sealing, deferred adjudication and set-aside, certificates of rehabilitation, and laws that limit consideration of conviction in connection with employment and licensing. Author Margaret Colgate Love is Director of the ABA Commission on Effective Criminal Sanctions.

The heart of the guide is its detailed descriptions of available relief mechanisms for each U.S. jurisdiction and how they operate. A Table of Charts allows easy state-to-state comparisons. The guide is an invaluable resource for policymakers and legal researchers dealing with the barriers to offender re-entry and for practitioners at every level of the justice system.

This work, the first-ever effort to catalog and analyze the relief mechanisms in every state, will be an indispensable field manual for practitioners and a valuable tool for advocates and policymakers.

Prosecution Strategies in Domestic Violence

February 13, 2019August 5, 2017 by admin

1. PROJECT DESCRIPTION

1.1 Background and Purpose

The criminal justice system has only recently begun to respond to domestic violence as a public offense. Under common law, a man could lawfully beat his wife because he was legally responsible for her actions and therefore could “correct” her behavior through chastisement.’ Although wife beating was declared illegal in all states in 1920; domestic violence was largely ignored. Domestic violence historically has been viewed as a family matter, out of the purview of the criminal justice system. It was dealt with primarily through attempts at mediation or reconciliation, rather than through punishment. Attention to battered women in the U.S. did not become widespread until 1975 and early 1976, with the beginning of the Battered Womenk Movement? The roots of the movement saw the establishment of the first shelters for battered women in St. Paul, Minnesota and Boston, Massachusetts. Since that time, services for battered women have expanded through the establishment of additional suppor

Crime Scene Clues to Suspect Misdirection of the Investigation

December 28, 2018August 5, 2017 by admin

ABSTRACT

In the course of their career, most detectives and forensic practitioners will come into contact with a staged crime scene; a scene that has been altered by the offender to either mislead a police investigation as to the true facts of the crime or for other reasons understood only by the offender. To better understand the dynamics of the event, the nature of “staging” is examined through the introduction of distinct categories of staged crime scenes based on the motive of the offender’s misdirection. With this in mind, the offender’s objective relevant to the staged event can be divided into three separate types, Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary. The Primary staged scene involves intentional and purposeful, altering or changing of the crime scene with specific criminal intent to misdirect a police investigation, where as Secondary staging involves the intentional alteration or manipulation of the crime scene or victim by an offender that is unrelated to misdirecting or diverting subsequent investigations. Noncriminal alterations; i.e.

South African Medical Journal Penetrating Stab Wounds Of The Chest

February 13, 2019August 5, 2017 by admin

Penetrating stab wounds of the chest constitute an everpresent problem in many hospitals in South Africa. At Baragwanath Hospital, where approximately 1,500 cases are admitted annually, our experience in common with many other workers is that the mortality rate is steadily decreasing. Peace-time figures only are quoted, since war-time injuries involve tearing injuries by high velocity fragments as compared with the simple incised wound, common in peace-time. Representative mortality rates are: Boland' (1935) 13%, Elkin and Cooper' (1942) 62%, Skapinker" (1949) 6%, Gray et al: (1960) 3·8%, Garzan et al: (1964) 2%, and Baragwanath Hospital (1963) 1·6% (including those cases with thoraco-abdominal wounds who died during the postoperative period). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the factors operating in the patho-physiology of this condition and the treatment in relation to the patho-physiology, resulting in the lowered mortality rate.PATHO-PHYSIOLOGY IN PENETRATING WOUNDS OF THE CHEST Penetrating injuries of the chest produce ill-effects as a result of the following factors

Integrating Information Systems into the Justice Community

February 13, 2019August 5, 2017 by admin

INTRODUCTION

“Any member of the justice community can access the information they need to do their job, at the time they need it, in a form that is useful, regardless of the location of the data.” This is the vision that the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global) Advisory Committee (GAC) an advisory body to the U.S. attorney general, the assistant U.S. attorney general, and the U.S. Office of Justice Programs that was created to promote issues related to the exchange of justice information described in the report “A Framework for Justice Information Sharing: Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).” Since that report, there have been a number of follow-up articles and practical initiatives that have attempted to further define and implement the principles and tenets that it champions. Technology vendors and service providers alike have responded to this need to share information across jurisdictions and are offering solutions for real-time information access regardless of the source or technology associated with that information. These solutions are developed around

Damages for the “Unwanted” Child:

December 28, 2018August 5, 2017 by admin

If a healthy child born as a result of clinical negligence is a “blessing” which should not resound in child maintenance damages, can one create an exception for the birth of a disabled child? If so, should the law then permit a further exception for the disabled parent of a healthy child? And, even if the healthy child is not the proper subject-matter of damages, is this the same as saying that those who actively sought to avoid parenthood suffer no loss at all? Over the last six years, such questions have arisen in the English courts following the House of Lords ruling in McFarlane v Tayside Health Board in 1999 that parents of an unplanned but healthy child were no longer entitled to recover damages reflecting the costs of its maintenance. That McFarlane did not straightforwardly apply to cases where either the child or the parent is disabled, not only led to the lower courts creating a series of difficult exceptions,

The Emotional Stroop Task and Psychopathology

February 19, 2019August 5, 2017 by admin

Anxiety and depressive disorders remain the most common forms of psychopathology and represent a large challenge for psychological analysis and treatment. Although the various forms of emotional disorder differ in many ways, recent cognitive accounts have pointed out how each of them share a common feature: sensitivity to and preoccupation with stimuli in their environment that represent their concern. Central to these cognitive theories of psychopathology is the notion that such preoccupation arises from biases in attention. For example, hypervigilance to cues signaling impending danger from the environment is an important feature of recent models of anxiety (Beck, Emery, & Greenberg, 1985), and similar hypersensitivity to bodily sensations has been implicated in panic disorder (Clark, 1988; McNally, 1990). In posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), attention is drawn to stimuli that remind of past trauma and exacerbate the fear of future similar events (Yule, 1991 ). In depression, the preoccupation is with past losses, the mind being dominated by ruminations such as "I have lost my friends" and "

Handbook of Forensic Services

December 28, 2018August 5, 2017 by admin

Introduction

The Handbook of Forensic Services provides guidance and procedures for safe and efficient methods of collecting, preserving, packaging, and shipping evidence and describes the forensic examinations performed by the FBI’s Laboratory Division and Operational Technology Division. FBI Forensic Services The successful investigation and prosecution of crimes require, in most cases, the collection, preservation, and forensic analysis of evidence. Forensic analysis of evidence is often crucial to determinations of guilt or innocence. The FBI has one of the largest and most comprehensive forensic laboratories in the world, and the FBI Laboratory is accredited by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/ Laboratory Accreditation Board. The forensic services of the FBI Laboratory Division and the Operational Technology Division are available to the following:

FBI field offices and legal attachés.

U.S. attorneys, military tribunals, and other federal agencies for civil and criminal matters.

State, county, and municipal law enforcement agencies in the United States and territorial possessions for criminal matters.

Impulsive-Compulsive Sexual Behavior

December 28, 2018August 5, 2017 by admin

ABSTRACT

Impulsive-compulsive sexual behavior is a little studied clinical phenomenon which affects 5% to 6% of the population. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition-Text Revision, it is classified as an impulse control disorder not otherwise specified or a sexual disorder not otherwise specified. It may be placed in a possible new category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition called substance and behavioral addictions. This clinical entity is reviewed and the merit of classifying it as an addiction is assessed. Information is presented regarding its diagnostic criteria, epidemiology, types of behavior it can involve, relationship to hypersexuality, comorbidities, treatment, and etiology. The data regarding this disorder and its overlap with chemical addiction is limited. If the two disorders are to be grouped together, further data are needed.

INTRODUCTION

Some individuals have a great deal of difficulty controlling their sexual behavior. They have frequent intrusive thoughts about sex and repeatedly engage in sexual behavior that can become

A Method for Generating Narrative Discourse to Prompt Inferences

February 16, 2019August 5, 2017 by admin

ABSTRACT

Narratives that prompt inferences can be more interesting in that they provide the reader with the opportunity to reason about the narrative world, participating in its construction. These narratives can also be more concise and direct, as details can be filled in by the reader. On the other hand, narratives that leave out important information without the opportunity to infer this information may be incoherent. To generate narratives that prompt inferences a system must 1) employ a theory of how inferences are prompted and 2) provide a capacity for creating narratives that satisfy inference goals. This paper presents is a novel algorithm for generating discourse plans that prompt inferences according to a theory of online inferencing in narrative discourse Though other approaches have generated narrative and discourse structures to influence the reader’s perception of the narrative, this is the first approach to present an empirically based cognitive model of online inference generation. The algorithm is a partial-order planning approach to discourse

Suicidal Hanging: A Prospective Study

February 16, 2019August 5, 2017 by admin

Abstract

The objective of this study was to focus on various factors associated with suicide by hanging at Chennai, India; with a view to identify the areas of intervention. A prospective study was carried out on 65 cases of death due to suicide by hanging which was received by the Institute of Forensic Medicine, Madras Medical College, Chennai, India, during the period of August 2008- July 2009. In the present study, 84.7%% of the cases were below the age of 40years, time of hanging in 50.8% of the cases was 3am-12noon, place of hanging in 95.5% of the cases was their residence, 92.3% were living with their family and 69.2% were married. Most frequent precipitating factors were marital unhappiness (33.8%), problems associated with organic disease (18.5%) and dowry harassment (16.8%). To reduce the incidence of suicides by hanging, there is urgent need to focus on these factors.

Introduction:

Suicide is a major socioeconomic and public health issue worldwide. Hanging is one of

Assessing Risk Factors for Intimate Partner Homicide

December 28, 2018August 5, 2017 by admin

Why does domestic violence turn to murder? Can we measure the risk of death for a battered woman? Which women in abusive relationships are most likely to be killed?

One helpful tool for finding answers to these questions is called the Danger Assessment. The series of 15 questions on the Danger Assessment is designed to measure a woman’s risk in an abusive relationship. (See figure 1.)

Figure 1: The Danger Assessment Tool

The Danger Assessment Tool was developed in 1985 and revised in 1988 after reliability and validity studies were done. Completing the Danger Assessment can help a woman evaluate the degree of danger she faces and consider what she should do next. Practitioners are reminded that the Danger Assessment is meant to be used with a calendar to enhance the accuracy of the battered woman’s recall of events.

The Danger Assessment can be printed from: The Danger Assessment Tool which also gives directions regarding permission for use.