Linking up to Learn

Connecting young people with older people in a learning environment is a win-win situation. Both groups learn and both groups grow to appreciate what each of them brings to the experience. Such is the case with the Collaborative Learning Through Technology Program operating at W. T. Clarke Middle School in Westbury, New York, sponsored by the Clarke PTSA

Imagining the Arctic: International Law, Governance, and Relations in the High North

Article published in the Michigan State International Law Review

Tasing the Constitution: Conducted Electrical Weapons, Other Forceful Arrest Means, and the Validity of Subsequent Constitutional Rights Waivers

Conducted electrical weapons (CEWs)—the most famous and widely used of which are offered under the TASER brand—are ubiquitous tools of law enforcement, carried by the vast majority of law enforcement officers and routinely deployed. These devices subdue targets by coursing electric current through their bodies, thereby causing individuals to collapse as their muscles involuntarily contract. Yet this method of operation has raised concerns—voiced by researchers, advocates, and criminal defendants alike—that CEWs influence cognitive capacity in addition to muscle function as electric current potentially transits through the brain via the central nervous system. In the context of an arrest, this implicates criminal suspects’ ability to understand Miranda warnings given by officers and to competently waive their constitutional rights against self-incrimination and to counsel. Some have gone so far as to recommend a mandated delay between when suspects are tased and when officers may administer Miranda warnings in order to protect individuals’ rights. Intimate understandings of the law of Miranda v. Arizona and the true effects of CEWs on cognitive capacity are critical for determining the prudence of this recommendation, and have broader implications for the criminal justice system. This Article is the first to conduct a thorough survey and analysis of the law of Miranda with regard to how courts determine whether individuals’ waivers of their constitutional rights following Miranda warnings are knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. Ultimately, cognitive capacity is an important factor, but, in examining this faculty, courts generally rely most heavily on subjective indicia of mental acuity manifested at the time Miranda warnings were administered—e.g., reasoning ability, tone, bodily movements, and temperament. Objective indicia of mental acuity—i.e., those shown through empirical research to signal cognitive ability, such as age, education, intelligence, and blood alcohol content—are routinely treated as less valuable than subjective indicia, particularly when the two are in opposition. This presents a high bar for empirical research on the cognitive effects of CEWs to scale in order to meaningfully influence court determinations of the legitimacy of rights waivers. This Article is also the first to conduct a comprehensive survey and examination of the literature addressing the cognitive effects of CEWs and compare these effects to those of other forceful arrest methods. Studies reveal that, rather than having a unique effect on cognition through some interaction between electric current and the brain, CEWs actually appear to impact mental faculties through a general stress effect, which other forceful methods of arrest have as well—e.g., physical altercation, police dog attack, and pepper spray. Therefore, an exceptional rule requiring a delay in administering Miranda warnings to suspects subject to CEWs does not seem appropriate. Nevertheless, the literature does show forceful arrest methods meaningfully affecting individual mental acuity. While more research is necessary to more finely deduce the extent of these impacts, they appear to be such that courts should consider a forceful arrest close enough in time to the administration of a Miranda warning to be a negative factor in assessing defendants’ competence to waive their rights, similar to evidence indicating low intelligence or intoxication at the time of waiver

Bridging the Gap Across the Transition to Coparenthood: Triadic Interactions and Coparenting Representations from Pregnancy through 12 Months Postpartum

Most family researchers agree that the coparenting relationship emerges some time during the transition to parenthood, though it is unclear whether it originates in pregnancy. Previous studies demonstrated that couples\u27 positive representations of their future coparenting relationship and harmonious coparenting behaviors observed during prenatal triadic interactions predicted better postpartum functioning. However, previous studies did not simultaneously assess prenatal coparenting behaviors and representations as predictors of postpartum coparenting. If the coparenting relationship originates during pregnancy, these behavioral and cognitive aspects of prenatal coparenting should show associations with their postpartum counterparts. Based on family systems-, attachment-, and social-learning theory, the first aim in this study was to explore whether prenatal coparenting representations and behaviors are associated with postpartum coparenting, which would suggest that both cognitive and behavioral aspects of the coparenting relationship emerge during pregnancy. A second aim was to determine whether parental coparenting representations are consistent with concurrently observed coparenting behaviors. A sample of 55 couples expecting their first child was observed during triadic interactions during pregnancy and at 3- and 12-months postpartum. Observations were coded using the Coparenting and Family Rating System. Composite scores were formed to reflect harmonious and antagonistic coparenting behaviors. Parents\u27 representations of harmonious and antagonistic coparenting were assessed via interviews and questionnaires during pregnancy and at 3- and 12-months postpartum. Results indicated that prenatal representations of harmonious and antagonistic coparenting were associated with and predicted unique variance in respective postpartum coparenting representations. Prenatal coparenting behaviors were also associated with coparenting behaviors observed during 3-months-play and 12-months-mealtime interactions and predicted unique variance in postpartum coparenting. Surprisingly, prenatal coparenting representations were not associated with prenatal behaviors, though representations and behaviors were associated at 3 months postpartum. Findings suggest that the coparenting relationship originates during pregnancy with prenatal coparenting representations and behaviors bridging the gap across the transition to coparenthood. Future studies should include assessments of both cognitive and behavioral facets of the prenatal coparenting relationship

Neuroscience and the Model Penal Code\u27s Mens Rea Categories

This Essay addresses recent research and commentary regarding the potential contributions of cognitive neuroscience to law. For the first time, cognitive neuroscience methods have been brought to bear on the Model Penal Code’s (MPC’s) culpable–mental state categories through a neuroimaging study seeking to identify the neural correlates of knowledge and recklessness. Subsequently, this study has been presented as a paradigm for utilizing cognitive neuroscience to answer important legal questions. However, the original experiment appears to suffer serious experimental-design and conceptual limitations, belying subsequent advocacy for the legal utility of cognitive neuroscience. This Essay methodically details these limitations and argues that the original study does not seem to have actually elicited knowledge or recklessness in subjects or, even if it did, did not elicit them in discrete enough fashion to permit identification of the mental states’ neural correlates. The Essay also contends, more broadly, that cognitive neuroscience appears inapt for investigating the propriety of the MPC’s mens rea delineations since these are articulated in purely psychological-behavioral terms: mental states are the only requisites. Only psychological-behavioral manifestations provide base evidence of mental states’ existences. And psychological-behavioral research, not cognitive neuroscience, is the most direct way to investigate the practical, moral, and legal appropriateness of the MPC’s mental states by illuminating how individuals experience them, identify them in others, or employ them to dispense blame and punishment. Ultimately, recent cognitive neuroscience research does not appear to reveal anything of legal significance regarding the MPC. And, more broadly and contrary to recent assertions, cognitive neuroscience has substantial limitations when it comes to producing legally relevant information. Going forward, psychological-behavioral research should be given primacy in cognitive science investigations of MPC concepts. Cognitive neuroscience studies, on the other hand, should be treated with exceptional skepticism