Actual Innocence in New York: The Curious Case of \u3cem\u3ePeople v. Hamilton\u3c/em\u3e

It is rare for a case from the New York Appellate Division to be as significant as People v. Hamilton. The case, however, was the first New York appellate court decision to hold that a defendant might vacate his conviction if he could demonstrate that he was “actually innocent” of the crime of which he was charged. Although the precedential force of the decision is limited to the Second Department, trial courts throughout the state are required to follow Hamilton unless or until the appellate court in their own Department rules on the issue. Courts throughout the state are thus entertaining numerous “actual innocence” motions inspired by Hamilton. While courts in some other states, including state appellate courts, have recognized actual innocence claims, whether such claims should be recognized, and if so under what circumstances, is a very live issue in the federal courts and numerous state courts throughout the country. Examination of Hamilton, therefore, provides a useful way to consider issues that are of surpassing importance in criminal law and that will likely reoccur in cases throughout the country. As Hamilton goes further than many other courts have in considering the implications of actual innocence claims, consideration of Hamilton may be of considerable value to courts that consider actual innocence claims. Hamilton is a trailblazer, and its trail will repay careful study

Galaxy Formation: Was There A Big Bang Shell?

The tight correlation of galactic velocity distribution to both luminosity and its black hole mass and the relation of halo parameters to luminous mass distribution, can not be due to collapse dynamics. A big bang shell can solve galaxy formation problems by forming the supermassive black holes necessary to capture the initial blast wave in a coordinated pattern.Comment: 7 pages late

The Tail of the HI Mass Function

The contribution of extragalactic objects with HI masses below $10^8 M_\odot$ to the HI mass function remains uncertain. Several aspects of the detection of low-mass sources in HI surveys are not always considered, and as a result different analysis techniques yield widely different estimates for their number density. It is suggested at one extreme that the number density of galaxies follows a shallow Schechter power-law slope, and at the other extreme that it follows a steep faint-end rise like that found for field optical sources. Here we examine a variety of selection effects, issues of completeness, and consequences of LSS. We derive results for the large Arecibo Dual Beam Survey which indicate that the field mass function does rise steeply, while within the Virgo Cluster environs, the slope appears to be much shallower. Dependence on the local density of galaxies may partially explain differences between surveys.Comment: 8 pages, presented at Mapping the Hidden Universe: The Universe in HI. eds Kraan-Korteweg, Henning, Andernac

The Future of South Asia: Population Dynamics, Economic Prospects, and Regional Coherence

What do we foresee for South Asia in 2060, in light of the significant changes it has undergone in the past few decades? India has experienced rapid economic growth, but continues to suffer widespread, extreme poverty as well. Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka have seen major conflicts, with Pakistan always seeming on the verge of a major eruption. Nepal and Sri Lanka finally seem to have moved toward peace. As elsewhere, the region's many developments and crosscurrents make reliable predictions difficult, but one relatively neglected set of factors – demographic change – may shed some light on the region's future. Throughout the world, falling mortality rates and declining birth rates have been predictive of growing per-capita incomes, and theoretical reasoning and related evidence are sufficiently compelling to think that the links may indeed be causal. In this vein, this essay explores South Asia's economic prospects through a demographic lens. In addition, as we will see, there are some similar demographic trends across the countries of South Asia, but there are also a number of extreme differences. Regional heterogeneity bears on the question, "to what extent is South Asia a coherent region?"South Asia, demographic change, economic prospects, demographic trends, regional heterogeneity

A multidisciplinary approach to the implementation of non-pharmacological strategies to manage infant pain

Hills E., Rosenberg J., Banfield N., Harding C. A multidisciplinary approach to the implementation of non-pharmacological strategies to manage infant pain. Infant 2020; 16(2): 78-81. 1. Newborn infants are capable of experiencing pain. 2. Infants requiring specialist hospital care are likely to experience painful medical procedures. 3. Unmanaged pain has a long-lasting impact on an infant’s behaviour and physiological status