Justice and Other Crimes Evidence: The Smorgasbord Ploy

The smorgasbord ploy probably plays only a minor role in the admission of other crimes evidence. But it offers us a nice window into the uses and abuses of Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence (“the Rules”) and its state clones. Rule 404(b)’s drafters may have supposed that trial judges would look among the illustrative uses in Rule 404(b) and select the one or two that seem most apropos to the case before them. However, the practitioners of smorgasbordism do not make any choices but instead list all (or most) of the illustrative uses to support the admission of the other crimes. We can surmise the judge calculates that this will avoid appellate reversal by giving appellate judges more grounds for affirming a decision to admit other crimes evidence. Moreover, it saves work; the judge need not put in as much effort to use the ploy as she would have to in deciding which of the adversaries has analyzed admissibility correctly

Is DNA Evidence Relevant?

In admitting DNA sample taken at the crime scene in 2010 to compare it with a DNA sample taken from the defendant in 2020 courts assume that the defendant’s DNA has not changed in the prior ten years. This article questions that assumption using scientific findings published in the journals Scientific American and Science News

Confrontation Stories: Raleigh on the Mayflower

In Crawford v. Washington, the Supreme Court tried again to reformulate the restrictions of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment on the admissibility of hearsay evidence offered by prosecutors. Crawford adopted a dual system of analysis, with a more stringent test for an ill-defined class of statements the Court called “testimonial” while leaving other hearsay statements to the permissive standards laid down in Ohio v. Roberts. Justice Scalia’s majority opinion relies upon a conventional version of history to justify its new scheme. This essay argues that the conventional history errs in supposing that the right of confrontation originated in England. The “true history” supports some parts of the Crawford analysis but undermines the Court’s narrow view that conflates confrontation and cross-examination

A model problem in insect ecology

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Propositions and meaning : a study of denotationist theories of logical meaning

This thesis is partly an historical and partly a critical study of the philosophical view that propositions(argument components or logical meanings) are in some sense "objects" denoted by sentences. The author confines his at tent ion to theories developed during a revolutionary period in the history of logic - between the publication of Mill's A System of logic and that of Principia Mathematica by Russell and Whitehead. Starting from Mill, the author traces the development of denotationist theories in the writings of Brentano, Meinong, Frege, and early Moore and Russell. Broadly speaking, the views discussed represent two distinct theories of the proposition. Firstly, there is the theory that propositions, in the sense of meaning-objects denoted by sentences, are identical with or can be reduced to objects denoted by words and non-sentential phrases, This theory, the author argues, carl be found in Mill and early Frege, and is most explicitly stated by Brentano. Secondly, there is the theory that the meaning-objects denoted by indicative sentences are fundamentally different from the objects denoted by words and phrases, and that propositions therefore form a distinctive class of denotata, This view is represented in the writings of later Frege, Meinong and early Russell, In the first chapter, the author discusses theories of the proposition suggested by Mill and early Frege, Firstly, he tries to bring out the conflicting strands in Mill's thought, by contrasting Mill's "official" denotationist theory of propositions with other denotationist doctrines suggested in the Logic. Secondly, the author outlines Frege's early theory of meaning, and discuses some of the difficulties that lead Frege o modify his early denotationist assumptions, The second chapter of the thesis begins with an xposition of Brentano's "intentional" theory of mental acts and objects, and then goes on to show how Brentano uses this theory in an attempt to explain the meaning of propositions "from the empirical standpoint". The author emphasises Brentano's debt to Mill, and his influence on Meinong

The New Expanded Bankruptcy Court Jurisdiction Versus a State License Revocation: A Modern Clash in Federalism

A significant part of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 (Act) was the expansion of the jurisdiction of the Bankruptcy Court

Mobility of antimony, arsenic and lead at a former mine, Glendinning, Scotland

Elevated concentrations of antimony (Sb), arsenic (As) and lead (Pb) in upland organic-rich soils have resulted from past Sb mining activities at Glendinning, southern Scotland. Transfer of these elements into soil porewaters was linked to the production and leaching of dissolved organic matter and to leaching of spoil material. Sb was predominantly present in truly dissolved (< 3 kDa) forms whilst As and Pb were more commonly associated with large Fe-rich/organic colloids. The distinctive porewater behaviour of Sb accounts for its loss from deeper sections of certain cores and its transport over greater distances down steeper sections of the catchment. Although Sb and As concentrations decreased with increasing distance down a steep gully from the main spoil heap, elevated concentrations (~ 6-8 and 13-20 μg L− 1, respectively) were detected in receiving streamwaters. Thus, only partial attenuation occurs in steeply sloping sections of mining-impacted upland organic-rich soils and so spoil-derived contamination of surface waters may continue over time periods of decades to centuries