Arbitration With Government

Arbitration is today increasingly dominant in the affairs of government. As a principal means of alternative dispute resolution, the utility of arbitration has brought it far beyond the confines of private law. The expanding role of arbitration is now broadly evident in agreements with governments and governmental entities at state and federal levels, and in international agreements involving governments. The question this poses for the lawyer working for government, or private parties contractually bound to arbitrate with government, is whether the adoption of arbitration for disputes involving government constitutes a fundamental shift of dynamics requiring a strategic shift in perspective and approach. What is the significance of the transformation of arbitration from the regime of private law party choice, to law purposed to serve public policy? This article examines that question

Resolving Boundary Disputes in California: A Radical Reassessment in Light of Proposition 13

This Article examines the law of adverse possession as applied and proposes to end its irrational application. It is irrational because the most significant requirement for achieving adverse possession is no longer logically applied after the advent of Proposition 13

Libraries in the Future

A poster presented by Elizabeth Decker, Jack Garvey and Jessica Wicker for the class Libraries and Literacies: Plans for the Future of Libraries.https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/gsp_projects_2019/1006/thumbnail.jp

Flooding in Patapsco Valley State Park: Recommendations for Signage and Communication Materials

Final project for ENSP400: Capstone in Environmental Science and Policy (Spring 2020). University of Maryland, College Park.Patapsco Valley State Park (PVSP) and its surrounding areas have been subject to increased flooding in recent years. In 2016 and 2018, the area experienced two 1,000-year floods (Halverson, 2018) that significantly damaged the park. Flooding events of this severity and magnitude are expected to be exacerbated in the future due to rapidly increasing impacts from climate change (Denchak, 2019). The park has found it challenging to communicate flood risks to visitors. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which manages PVSP, is concerned that visitors don’t plan ahead when they attend the park, and don’t know the risks involved in hiking through the park, which puts them at a greater risk of harm in the event of a flood. Additionally, many PVSP visitors don’t speak or read English, which creates a significant communication gap between visitors and the park to convey safety messages about flooding. This project aims to determine the most effective language for signage and communication materials to communicate flood risks and what to do if a flood occurs. The group reviewed academic and non-academic literature on the best ways to communicate risk, the best ways to educate youth, strategies used by other parks to communicate risk, as well as information about the Ellicott City area. The research and final deliverables aim to determine the most effective language for signs within PVSP, and the best education and communication materials to distribute to park visitors. The project began with a client meeting to define expectations for the project. We determined three major aspects: creating safety signage, creating educational materials, and creating a video to be shown at the PVSP mobile ranger station. We also discussed the importance of improving communication with Spanish-speaking visitors. Following this meeting, the group researched flood-risk education, risk communication in parks, risk communication with Spanish speakers, and best practices for park signage. A site visit gave the team a better understanding of the client’s expectations. After this visit, the group divided into three teams; the first team was tasked with editing existing park signs, the second team was tasked with developing educational materials, and the third team was tasked with writing a detailed video script for use throughout the park and at the mobile ranger station. Each team conducted additional relevant research. The result was three deliverables: recommendations and mock-ups of effective safety signage, educational pamphlets that inform park visitors about flooding risks, and a script for an educational video on flooding. We hope this work can contribute to DNR’s goal of providing accessible and appropriate flood communication materials for all park visitors.Maryland Department of Natural Resource

Amici Curiae Brief of New York law school professors in People v. Harris: Constitutionality of the New York Death Penalty Statute Under the State Constitution\u27s Cruel and Unusual Punishments and Antidiscrimination Clauses

Amici are teachers in New York law schools who have studied the operation of the death penalty for the purpose of teaching the subject, writing about it in scholarly journals, or representing persons accused or convicted of capital crimes. Most of us have worked in the field both as academics and as pro bono counsel for condemned inmates. Collectively, we have had first-hand experience in hundreds of death cases, in dozens of jurisdictions, extending over more than a third of a century. Our experience has convinced us that capital punishment cannot be administered with the fairness, reliability, and freedom from discrimination that a penalty so grave and irreversible requires. This is no accident or transitory condition; it is the consequence of certain innate attributes of the penalty of death. The purpose of our brief is to analyze those attributes and explain why they are fundamentally at war with the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause and the Antidiscrimination Clause of New York’s Bill of Rights. We hope to persuade the Court that it should not temporize with the death penalty in the face of this basic incompatibility but should hold the 1995 death penalty statute altogether unconstitutional

Improved Resolution Haplogroup G Phylogeny in the Y Chromosome, Revealed by a Set of Newly Characterized SNPs

Background: Y-SNP haplogroup G (hgG), defined by Y-SNP marker M201, is relatively uncommon in the United States general population, with only 8 additional sub-markers characterized. Many of the previously described eight sub-markers are either very rare (2–4%) or do not distinguish between major populations within this hg. In fact, prior to the current study, only 2 % of our reference Caucasian population belonged to hgG and all of these individuals were in sub-haplogroup G2a, defined by P15. Additional Y-SNPs are needed in order to differentiate between individuals within this haplogroup. Principal Findings: In this work we have investigated whether we could differentiate between a population of 63 hgG individuals using previously uncharacterized Y-SNPs. We have designed assays to test these individuals using all known hgG SNPs (n = 9) and an additional 16 unreported/undefined Y-SNPS. Using a combination of DNA sequence and genetic genealogy databases, we have uncovered a total of 15 new hgG SNPs that had been previously reported but not phylogenetically characterized. Ten of the new Y-SNPs are phylogenetically equivalent to M201, one is equivalent to P15 and, interestingly, four create new, separate haplogroups. Three of the latter are more common than many of the previously defined Y-SNPs. Y-STR data from these individuals show that DYS385*12 is present in (70%) of G2a3b1-U13 individuals while only 4 % of non-G2a3b1-U13 individuals posses the DYS385*12 allele. Conclusions: This study uncovered several previously undefined Y-SNPs by using data from several database sources. Th