Vernal Pool Conservation: Enhancing Existing Regulation Through the Creation of the Maine Vernal Pool Special Area Management Plan

Conservation of natural resources is challenging given the competing economic and ecological goals humans have for landscapes. Vernal pools in the northeastern US are seasonal, small wetlands that provide critical breeding habitat for amphibians and invertebrates adapted to temporary waters, and are exceptionally hard to conserve as their function is dependent on connections to other wetlands and upland forests. A team of researchers in Maine joined forces with a diverse array of governmental and private stakeholders to develop an alternative to existing top-down vernal pool regulation. Through creative adoption and revision of various resource management tools, they produced a vernal pool conservation mechanism, the Maine Vernal Pool Special Management Area Plan that meets the needs of diverse stakeholders from developers to ecologists. This voluntary mitigation tool uses fees from impacts to vernal pools in locally identified growth areas to fund conservation of “poolscapes” (pools plus appropriate adjacent habitat) in areas locally designated for rural use. In this case study, we identify six key features of this mechanism that illustrate the use of existing tools to balance growth and pool conservation. This case study will provide readers with key concepts that can be applied to any conservation problem: namely, how to work with diverse interests toward a common goal, how to evaluate and use existing policy tools in new ways, and how to approach solutions to sticky problems through a willingness to accept uncertainty and risk

Actions speak louder than words: designing transdisciplinary approaches to enact solutions

Sustainability science uses a transdisciplinary research process in which academic and non-academic partners collaborate to identify a common problem and co-produce knowledge to develop more sustainable solutions. Sustainability scientists have advanced the theory and practice of facilitating collaborative efforts such that the knowledge created is usable. There has been less emphasis, however, on the last step of the transdisciplinary process: enacting solutions. We analyzed a case study of a transdisciplinary research effort in which co-produced policy simulation information shaped the creation of a new policy mechanism. More specifically, by studying the development of a mechanism for conserving vernal pool ecosystems, we found that four factors helped overcome common challenges to acting upon new information: creating a culture of learning, co-producing policy simulations that acted as boundary objects, integrating research into solution development, and employing an adaptive management approach. With an increased focus on these four factors that enable action, we can better develop the same level of nuanced theoretical concepts currently characterizing the earlier phases of transdisciplinary research, and the practical advice for deliberately designing these efforts

A New Approach to the Fourth Amendment in Light of Proposition Eight

The purpose of this article is quite simple. It confines itself to the area of search and seizure law and begins by assuming the worst-that the Court eventually rules that a federal standard applies to all such suppression issues. It then goes on to propose an argument which is intended to rescue as much of California\u27s independent search and seizure law as is possible

Confrontation Clause Again Before High Court

This past term, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the latest in a series of confrontation clause cases that began in 2004 with Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36. In Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 11 C.D.O.S. 7706, the court held that the confrontation clause does not permit the government to introduce a forensic lab report in a criminal trial through the in-court testimony of an analyst who did not personally perform or observe the test that formed the basis for the report

Waiver of the Right to Appeal

This Article explores the legal and constitutional issues raised by appeal waivers. Section I analyzes the current state of the case law. Section II explores the due process challenge to appeal waivers, and concludes that such a challenge would be difficult to sustain given the current state of due process law. It, nonetheless, goes on to suggest that a key premise of due process theory as it relates to plea bargaining- the presumed equality of bargaining power between the prosecution and the defense-may be ripe for challenge. Section ill discusses the public policy arguments for and against appeal waivers, and argues that the public policy debate has been unduly skewed in favor of caseload concerns, without giving sufficient consideration to the essential role that the right to appeal plays in the criminal justice system. Section III argues that appeal waivers should either be disapproved or given very restricted scope. Finally, Section IV explores the particular problems raised by waivers of sentencing error. It concludes that waivers of future sentencing error are very difficult to reconcile with traditional definitions of knowing waiver or with the basic policies which inform the right to appeal. This section urges that even if appeal waivers are upheld generally, such approval should not extend to waivers of prospective sentencing error

Overcoming: A Theory of Accelerated Second-Degree Baccalaureate Graduate Nurse Transition to Professional Nursing Practice.

A plethora of stressors are known to be related to the process of transition to professional nursing practice as the neophyte registered nurse (RN) transitions from student to professional nurse. Although not new, accelerated second-degree baccalaureate nursing (ASDBN) programs have opened in record numbers in recent years in the wake of the current nursing shortage. Little is known about the experience of professional practice for accelerated second-degree baccalaureate graduate nurses (ASDBGNs). The stressful graduate nurse transition, current nursing shortage, and lack of an empirical base for ASDBN programs illustrate the significance of the research problem. This modified grounded theory study generated a substantive Theory of Overcoming: ASDBGN Transition to Professional Nursing Practice. Constant comparative method of joint data collection, analysis, theoretical sampling, and memoing was used. Data were collected through semistructured interviews using open-ended questions that were conducted over the telephone or in person. The identified basic social process (BSP), overcoming, encompasses 5 stages: reality check, goaling, getting started, coming out on top, and mastering. Study findings provide a beginning evidence-base for nursing education, policy, and clinical practice related to this growing student population

Confessions and the Right to Counsel: Reflections on Recent Changes in Turkish Criminal Procedure

The author delivered these remarks at the First International Workshop on Criminal Law Reform which was held in Istanbul, Turkey from October 20-24, 1999. The conference was sponsored by the Goethe Institute; Heinrich-Eoell-Stifling, Germany; University of Kansas School of Law; Marmara University School of Law; and Yeditepe University School of Law