Competency, Counsel, and Criminal Defendants’ Inability To Participate

Built into the foundation of the U.S. criminal justice system is the idea that defendants must be able to participate in the trials against them. The right not to stand trial unless competent is premised on the idea that it is fundamentally unfair for defendants to stand trial unless they are able to participate in their trial in at least some capacity. Likewise, the right to counsel is based on a conception of defendants controlling at least some decisions in their case. These rights express an ideal that is foundational to our criminal system: defendant participation must be protected. Ultimately, though, the criminal system does not do a sufficient job of protecting that ideal throughout the criminal process. Instead, the criminal system is punctuated with procedural rules and constitutional standards that actually erode defendants’ ability to participate in the trials that affect their lives. In accordance with the ideal evident in the competency standard and the right to counsel, we should build a criminal justice system that allows for defendants to participate in meaningful and impactful ways. This Note first seeks out the doctrines that reveal the underlying ideal of defendant participation, and then examines the procedural rules and constitutional standards that prevent the actualization of that ideal. Ultimately, it concludes that these rules and standards must be changed to preserve the ideal of defendant participation throughout the criminal process. It has long been accepted that a person whose mental condition is such that he lacks the capacity to understand the nature and object of the proceedings against him, to consult with counsel, and to assist in preparing his defense may not be subjected to a trial. The right to defend is given directly to the accused; for it is he who suffers the consequences if the defense fails. The counsel provision supplements this design. It speaks of the assistance of counsel, and an assistant, however expert, is still an assistant

Virasoro constraints and the Chern classes of the Hodge bundle

We analyse the consequences of the Virasoro conjecture of Eguchi, Hori and Xiong for Gromov-Witten invariants, in the case of zero degree maps to the manifolds CP^1 and CP^2 (or more generally, smooth projective curves and smooth simply-connected projective surfaces). We obtain predictions involving intersections of psi and lambda classes on the compactification of M_{g,n}. In particular, we show that the Virasoro conjecture for CP^2 implies the numerical part of Faber's conjecture on the tautological Chow ring of M_g.Comment: 12 pages, latex2

Hodge integrals, partition matrices, and the lambda_g conjecture

We prove a closed formula for integrals of the cotangent line classes against the top Chern class of the Hodge bundle on the moduli space of stable pointed curves. These integrals are computed via relations obtained from virtual localization in Gromov-Witten theory. An analysis of several natural matrices indexed by partitions is required.Comment: 28 pages, published versio

Tautological and non-tautological cohomology of the moduli space of curves

After a short exposition of the basic properties of the tautological ring of the moduli space of genus g Deligne-Mumford stable curves with n markings, we explain three methods of detecting non-tautological classes in cohomology. The first is via curve counting over finite fields. The second is by obtaining length bounds on the action of the symmetric group S_n on tautological classes. The third is via classical boundary geometry. Several new non-tautological classes are found.Comment: 40 page

Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards 2005: Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards 2005 documents Massachusetts residents' unequal exposure to environmental hazards. More specifically, the report analyzes both income basedand racially-based disparities in the geographic distribution of some 17 different types ofenvironmentally hazardous sites and industrial facilities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This report provides evidence that working class communities and communities of color are disproportionately impacted by toxic waste disposal, incinerators, landfills, trash transfer stations, power plants, and polluting industrial facilities. In some cases, not only are new toxic facilities and dump sites located in poorer neighborhoods and communities of color, but as in the case of the public housing development and playgrounds near the Alewife station in Cambridge, housing for people of color and low income populations is sometimes located on top of preexisting hazardous waste sites and/or nearby polluting facilities. We conclude that striking inequities in the distribution of these environmentally hazardous sites and facilities are placing working class families and people of color at substantially greater risk of exposure to human health risks. We advocate the adoption of a number of measures, including a comprehensive environmental justice act, to reduce pollution and address unequal exposure to ecological threats

The Structure of Projected Center Vortices in Lattice Gauge Theory

We investigate the structure of center vortices in maximal center gauge of SU(2) lattice gauge theory at zero and finite temperature. In center projection the vortices (called P-vortices) form connected two dimensional surfaces on the dual four-dimensional lattice. At zero temperature we find, in agreement with the area law behaviour of Wilson loops, that most of the P-vortex plaquettes are parts of a single huge vortex. Small P-vortices, and short-range fluctuations of the large vortex surface, do not contribute to the string tension. All of the huge vortices detected in several thousand field configurations turn out to be unorientable. We determine the Euler characteristic of these surfaces and find that they have a very irregular structure with many handles. At finite temperature P-vortices exist also in the deconfined phase. They form cylindric objects which extend in time direction. After removal of unimportant short range fluctuations they consist only of space-space plaquettes, which is in accordance with the perimeter law behaviour of timelike Wilson loops, and the area law behaviour of spatial Wilson loops in this phase.Comment: 18 pages, LaTeX2e, 16 eps figures included in text; a misprint in the abstract correcte