Process and Progress: Reviewing the Criminal Justice Act

Prado describes the results of a comprehensive study of the federal defender program and concludes that as the federal criminal justice system evolves, the Criminal Justice Act program must adapt to ever-changing conditions

Probability & incompressible Navier-Stokes equations: An overview of some recent developments

This is largely an attempt to provide probabilists some orientation to an important class of non-linear partial differential equations in applied mathematics, the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Particular focus is given to the probabilistic framework introduced by LeJan and Sznitman [Probab. Theory Related Fields 109 (1997) 343-366] and extended by Bhattacharya et al. [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 355 (2003) 5003-5040; IMA Vol. Math. Appl., vol. 140, 2004, in press]. In particular this is an effort to provide some foundational facts about these equations and an overview of some recent results with an indication of some new directions for probabilistic consideration.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/154957805100000078 in the Probability Surveys (http://www.i-journals.org/ps/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

The Original Understanding of the New Hampshire Constitution’s Education Clause

[Excerpt] “In 1993, the New Hampshire Supreme Court held that “part II, article 83 [of the state constitution] imposes a duty on the State to provide a constitutionally adequate education to every educable child in the public schools in New Hampshire and to guarantee adequate funding,” and that this duty is enforceable by the judiciary. This decision, known as Claremont I, was the wellspring of a line of decisions that has radically changed both the manner in which public education is funded in New Hampshire and the respective roles of the judicial branch and the representative branches in formulating education policy. Since the adoption of the state constitution in 1784, public education in New Hampshire had been funded primarily with local taxes. The Claremont decisions flatly rejected this long tradition of local control of the funding of public education: “Whatever the State identifies as comprising constitutional adequacy it must pay for. None of that financial obligation can be shifted to local school districts, regardless of their relative wealth or need.”

New Hampshire’s Claremont Case and the Separation of Powers

[Excerpt] Court decisions involving the adequacy of public education raise some obvious separation of powers problems. These include the institutional competency of courts to determine what level of education is adequate and how much funding is necessary to reach that level, and the authority of courts to enforce such judgments. This article will examine these problems through New Hampshire’s serial education funding litigation, the Claremont case. [. . .] I will start by briefly reviewing the history of education funding litigation because this context is essential to understanding the Claremont case. I will then undertake a limited review of the Claremont case. Finally, I will consider Claremont from the standpoint of the separation of powers. I begin by examining the text and structure of the State Constitution and then consider whether there are judicially discoverable and manageable standards for determining what level of education is adequate and how much funding is necessary to reach that level. Because there is a textually demonstrable commitment of education funding and education policy to the legislative branch, and because what an adequate education comprises and costs are quintessentially political questions, Claremont represents a clear trespass on legislative powers and should be overruled.

Influenza virus

No abstract available