From Philly to Fayetteville: Reflections on Teaching Criminal Law in the First Year...Four Years Later

This piece briefly explores the Criminal Law course and specifically reflects on my experience teaching the course over the past four years. Readers of this piece might first enjoy reading this piece\u27s predecessor at 83 Temp. L. Rev. 475

Suspects, Cars & Police Dogs: A Complicated Relationship

Officers are searching and arresting vehicle occupants without a warrant with increasing regularity. For justification, this Article demonstrates, lower courts across the country unconstitutionally expand the scope of the Fourth Amendment’s automobile exception—often in the context of a positive dog alert. But Supreme Court jurisprudence specifically limits the scope of the automobile exception to warrantless searches of cars and their containers. In other words, the probable cause underlying the automobile exception allows police to search a vehicle and its containers—nothing more. Despite that clear guidance, this Article argues that a growing number of lower courts nationwide unconstitutionally rely on the probable cause associated with the automobile exception to warrantlessly search vehicle occupants or, alternatively, warrantlessly arrest vehicle occupants. Specifically, this Article identifies those courts that interpret the automobile exception to additionally authorize two overarching categories of warrantless investigative activity: (1) searching vehicle occupants, and (2) arresting vehicle occupants. Each category, in the order presented by this Article, progressively unmoors the automobile exception from its constitutional foundation by broadly expanding the probable cause standard necessary to search a vehicle to permit further warrantless investigation. In response, this Article asserts that the probable cause associated with the automobile exception is limited to searching cars and does not justify searching people—much less seizing people. Those investigative actions, the Article concludes, each require an independent exception to the warrant requirement supported by separate probable cause

Herding Bullfrogs towards a More Balanced Wheelbarrow: An Illustrative Recommendation for Federal Sentencing Post-Booker

The Article argues in favor of shifting the balance in federal sentencing toward a more indeterminate system. By exploring the post-Booker legal landscape at both the federal and state levels, the Article asserts that the judiciary\u27s continued reliance on the “advisory Guidelines has practically changed federal sentencing procedures very little in form or function. Accordingly, the Article proffers that, rather than insisting upon the Guidelines\u27 immutability, federal sentencing would do well to reflect upon its own history, and the evolution of its state counterparts

Comprehensive Model for Physical and Cognitive Frailty: Current Organization and Unmet Needs

Aging is characterized by the decline and deterioration of functional cells and results in a wide variety of molecular damages and reduced physical and mental capacity. The knowledge on aging process is important because life expectancy is expected to rise until 2050. Aging cannot be considered a homogeneous process and includes different trajectories characterized by states of fitness, frailty, and disability. Frailty is a dynamic condition put between a normal functional state and disability, with reduced capacity to cope with stressors. This geriatric syndrome affects physical, neuropsychological, and social domains and is driven by emotional and spiritual components. Sarcopenia is considered one of the determinants and the biological substrates of physical frailty. Physical and cognitive frailty are separately approached during daily clinical practice. The concept of motoric cognitive syndrome has partially changed this scenario, opening interesting windows toward future approaches. Thus, the purpose of this manuscript is to provide an excursus on current clinical practice, enforced by aneddoctical cases. The analysis of the current state of the art seems to support the urgent need of comprehensive organizational model incorporating physical and cognitive spheres in the same umbrella

Snapshot PCR surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 in hospital staff in England

Background: Significant nosocomial transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has been demonstrated. Understanding the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 carriage amongst HCWs at work is necessary to inform the development of HCW screening programmes to control nosocomial spread. / Methods: Cross-sectional ‘snapshot’ survey from April-May 2020; HCWs recruited from six UK hospitals. Participants self-completed a health questionnaire and underwent a combined viral nose and throat swab, tested by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) for SARS-CoV-2 with viral culture on majority of positive samples. / Findings: Point prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 carriage across the sites was 2.0% (23/1152 participants), median cycle threshold value 35.70 (IQR:32.42–37.57). 17 were previously symptomatic, two currently symptomatic (isolated anosmia and sore throat); the remainder declared no prior or current symptoms. Symptoms in the past month were associated with threefold increased odds of testing positive (aOR 3.46, 95%CI 1.38–8.67; p = 0.008). SARS-CoV-2 virus was isolated from only one (5%) of nineteen cultured samples. A large proportion (39%) of participants reported symptoms in the past month. / Interpretation: The point-prevalence is similar to previous estimates for HCWs in April 2020, though a magnitude higher than in the general population. Based upon interpretation of symptom history and testing results including viral culture, the majority of those testing positive were unlikely to be infectious at time of sampling. Development of screening programmes must balance the potential to identify additional cases based upon likely prevalence, expanding the symptoms list to encourage HCW testing, with resource implications and risks of excluding those unlikely to be infectious with positive tests. / Funding: Public Health England

Reference pricing, competition, and pharmaceutical expenditures : theory and evidence from a natural experiment

We study the impact of regulation on competition between brand-names and generics and pharmaceutical expenditures using a unique policy experiment in Norway, where reference pricing (RP) replaced price cap regulation in 2003 for a sub-sample of off-patent products. First, we construct a vertical differentiation model to analyze the impact of regulation on prices and market shares of brand-names and generics. Then, we exploit a detailed panel data set at product level covering several off-patent molecules before and after the policy reform. Off-patent drugs not subject to RP serve as our control group. We find that RP significantly reduces both brand-name and generic prices, and results in significantly lower brand-name market shares. Finally, we show that RP has a strong negative effect on average molecule prices, suggesting significant cost-savings, and that patients’ copayments decrease despite the extra surcharges under RP.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT