The Prosecutor and the Press: Lessons (Not) Learned from the Mike Nifong Debacle

Current projections indicate that by 2050, two in every three people will live in urban areas, and that cities will accommodate 3 billion people during this period. Cities are consuming three-quarters of the world's energy and causing three-quarters of global pollution. To reduce these impacts, new technologies have been considered in the development of smart sustainable cities, but technology has not always favoured the idea of sustainable consumption. To address this issue, we have aimed to focus on identifying the role of sustainable consumption within implementations of smart cities’ projects across Europe. We have selected a set of smart city projects in 76 cities in Europe from CONCERTO initiatives, Mapping Smart Cities in Europe, Energy Study for the Stockholm Region and Joint European Support for Sustainable Investment in City Areas and classified them according to: smart governance, smart mobility, smart living, smart environment, smart citizens and smart economy. Furthermore, we established a number of categories for the classification of the evaluated projects based on their relevance to sustainable consumption, and considered several solutions for the integration of sustainable consumption in smart sustainable cities. The results show that in 18.9% of the projects, sustainable consumption is not relevant at all. The second classification shows the percentage of the remaining categories where sustainable consumption is relevant; 8.3% consider sustainable consumption as relevant even though it was not implemented in the project. These cities aim to achieve a higher level of sustainable consumption, which is expected to be included in future projects. If they keep themselves in this category, their behavioural consumption patterns will not change and the impact of citizens on the cities will remain the same. The majority of the projects, 54.2%, implemented technology to reduce consumption but if the projects do not coincide with the behaviour of citizens, a big rebound effect will occur. 37.5% of the projects consider relevant sustainable consumption to its full potential and this can change citizen’s behaviour. In conclusion, sustainable consumption is relevant in most of the projects analysed, with new technologies available to help energy savings and reduction of our consumption. However, if there is a lack of smart consumption from the citizens, the technologies available might not be sufficient and consumption could increase. One quarter of the analysed smart cities projects still do not consider the consumption behaviour of the citizens. This can be changed through campaigns and explanations targeting the population on how to manage and reduce energy and resource consumption. To reduce the negative impact of the cities’ growth, projects considering smart sustainable cities need to integrate sustainable consumption policies that account for citizens' behaviour

Building a Curriculum for the English Language Learning Program at a New University

Turkish learners entering university for the first time have high expectations that a university education will be vastly different in its approach from their previous educational experiences. The hope is that learners will learn the skills needed to become independent, lifelong learners. While this may be true in their faculties, it is often not the case for learners attending English language preparatory programs (ELPP) where the course content is often dictated by textbooks. This use of the course books illustrates Krahnke\u27s (1987) concern that while course books are not intended to be syllabi, they often become so. Many current English language course books take a structural approach to their design that does not meet the learning needs of learners intending to study in an English language medium. This material development project aims to investigate the various approaches to curriculum design and use the tools found there to create the framework for an explicit four-module curriculum that provides student-centered learning, fosters learner autonomy, develops communication skills and prepares learners to study in their faculties in English. This project proposes to reach these goals through a systems approach to curriculum design (Nation & Macalister, Graves, 2000) utilizing the critical ideas of understanding by design (UbD) (Wiggins & McTighe, 2006) and Bloom\u27s Taxonomy

(Ad)ministering Justice: A Prosecutor\u27s Ethical Duty to Support Sentencing Reform

This article stakes out an ethical argument in favor of prosecutorial leadership on sentencing reform. Prosecutors have a duty as “ministers of justice” to go beyond seeking appropriate conviction and punishment in individual cases, and to think about the delivery of criminal justice on a systemic level ― promoting criminal justice policies that further broader societal ends. While other authors have explored the tensions between a prosecutor’s adversarial duties and “minister of justice” role in the context of specific litigation, few have explored what it means to be an “administer” of justice in the wider political arena. The author sets forth a new construct of what is required for a prosecutor to be a neutral, nonpartisan “administer of justice” in her legislative and public advocacy activities. Applying this paradigm to the ongoing national debate about sentencing reform, the author argues that a prosecutor’s administrative responsibilities as a leader in the criminal justice establishment and her fiduciary responsibilities as a representative of the sovereign should compel her to join in the effort to repeal mandatory minimum sentencing provisions for most drug and non-violent offenses. Not only are mandatory sentences in most instances unduly harsh, coercive, and inefficacious, but they allow for an arbitrary and discriminatory application that is essentially unreviewable by courts. The author distinguishes this argument against mandatory minimum penalties from the so-called “Smart on Crime” movement, by grounding a prosecutor’s duty to promote sentencing reform in ethical reasoning as opposed to pragmatic or cost-savings considerations. Even with robust political support from some of this nation’s most conscientious prosecutors, state legislatures are unlikely to repeal or cut back on all mandatory minimum sentences. Some mandatory prison terms ― for crimes such as murder, repeat offense OUI, and aggravated sexual offenses — will likely stay on the books notwithstanding the advocacy recommended above. A second question the author addresses in this article is how an ethical prosecutor should make plea bargaining decisions in the face of mandatory minimum prison terms retained by the legislature. While there has been substantial legal scholarship to date that has decried the manner in which mandatory minimum penalties have transferred sentencing discretion from judges to prosecutors, beyond that descriptive lament there has been very little attention paid to how exactly prosecutorial discretion might be more meaningfully constrained through internal self-regulation. Prosecutors can mitigate many of the harsh and unjust consequences of mandatory minimum sentences by instituting and publishing clear office policies governing when line prosecutors may dismiss or reduce charges that carry them. The author proposes specific guidelines that state prosecutors should adopt to ensure a consistent and even-handed application of mandatory minimum penalties, so that line prosecutors do not abuse the substantial discretion that has been afforded them in the plea bargaining process

Eucharistic Liturgies Of The Church of England 1945-1980

This thesis examines the 'development of Anglican Eucharistic theology from 1945 to the present day as shown by the texts used for the Service of Holy Communion. Both authorized and unauthorized Orders as well as official publications are used as primary sources. In order to gain insight into the meanings of the texts, the debates of the Convocations, the National Assembly of the Church of England, and the General Synod which concerned the Orders are looked at very closely. The writings of the members of the Liturgical Commission of the General Synod are given special consideration. Also used are the various books and pamphlets which appeared as commentaries on the new Orders (often before authorization), especially where they reflected the position of the Catholic or Evangelical wings of the Church of England. The thesis shows how the Church of England progressed towards the Alternative Service Book and shows how the theological emphases of the Church of England moved, or were perceived to move. The conclusion is drawn that the Church of England has developed from the Book of Common Prayer, fixed in what might be called 'the Cranmerian position', to the Alternative Service Book which deliberately allows individuals to take part in the Eucharistic Mystery with varying insights into its theology

Reconsidering Spousal Privileges after Crawford

In this article the author explores how domestic violence prevention efforts have been adversely impacted by the Supreme Court’s new “testimonial” approach to the confrontation clause. Examining the Court’s trilogy of cases from Crawford to Davis and Hammon, the author argues that the introduction of certain forms of hearsay in criminal cases has been drastically limited by the court’s new originalist approach to the Sixth Amendment. The author explains how state spousal privilege statutes often present a significant barrier to obtaining live testimony from victims of domestic violence. The author then argues that state legislatures should reconsider their spousal privilege rules in light of Crawford —many of which are poorly conceived, confused, and outdated—and should reform these statutes to add a spousal crimes exception to both the adverse testimonial privilege and the confidential communication privilege