Neuromodulatory control of localized dendritic spiking in critical period cortex.

Sensory experience in early postnatal life, during so-called critical periods, restructures neural circuitry to enhance information processing1. Why the cortex is susceptible to sensory instruction in early life and why this susceptibility wanes with age are unclear. Here we define a developmentally restricted engagement of inhibitory circuitry that shapes localized dendritic activity and is needed for vision to drive the emergence of binocular visual responses in the mouse primary visual cortex. We find that at the peak of the critical period for binocular plasticity, acetylcholine released from the basal forebrain during periods of heightened arousal directly excites somatostatin (SST)-expressing interneurons. Their inhibition of pyramidal cell dendrites and of fast-spiking, parvalbumin-expressing interneurons enhances branch-specific dendritic responses and somatic spike rates within pyramidal cells. By adulthood, this cholinergic sensitivity is lost, and compartmentalized dendritic responses are absent but can be re-instated by optogenetic activation of SST cells. Conversely, suppressing SST cell activity during the critical period prevents the normal development of binocular receptive fields by impairing the maturation of ipsilateral eye inputs. This transient cholinergic modulation of SST cells, therefore, seems to orchestrate two features of neural plasticity-somatic disinhibition and compartmentalized dendritic spiking. Loss of this modulation may contribute to critical period closure

The 2015 University of Missouri Protests and their Lessons for Higher Education Policy and Administration

In the tradition of legal narrative and storytelling, this Article explores how the University of Missouri managed to fare so badly after students began protesting during the fall of 2015. It draws upon both public sources and the author\u27s own observations as a faculty leader. The Article reviews the details and context of the Missouri protests and then presents a case study of crisis management and conflict resolution gone awry. Applying observations about higher education policy and administration to the phenomenon of student protests - particularly those related to race - the Article identifies potential pitfalls for university administrators and student activists. It then explains how specific actions taken (and, in some cases, not taken) by University of Missouri leaders increased the risk that student protests would lead to long term institutional damage. Finally, the Article suggests lessons that leaders at other universities-including trustees and administrators, as well as students and faculty can take from Mizzou\u27s experiences. Contrary to popular opinion, Mizzou did not have a uniquely bad racial climate, nor did its students behave in inexplicable ways. Instead, the challenges faced in Missouri will present themselves elsewhere, and leaders who have taken the time to learn from Mizzou\u27s mistakes will fare better than those who choose to ignore this history

Coconspirators, “Coventurers,” and the Exception Swallowing the Hearsay Rule

In recent years, prosecutors - sometimes with the blessing of courts - have argued that when proving the existence of a “conspiracy” to justify admission of evidence under the Coconspirator Exception to the Hearsay Rule, they need show only that the declarant and the defendant were “coventurers” with a common purpose, not coconspirators with an illegal purpose. Indeed, government briefs and court decisions specifically disclaim the need to show any wrongful goal whatsoever. This Article contends that such a reading of the Exception is mistaken and undesirable. Conducted for this article, a survey of thousands of court decisions, including the earliest English and American cases concerning the Exception as well as approximately 2500 federal court opinions discussing the Exception since its federal codification in 1975, makes clear that a “conspiracy” under the Exception must involve wrongful acts. First, courts and commentators have for centuries described the Exception as concerning illegal or illicit conduct. Second, because the drafters of the Federal Rules of Evidence (and analogous state codes) intended to adopt the common law understanding of the Exception when codifying it in Rule 801(d)(2)(E), encroachment beyond the historical boundaries of the Exception violates existing rules of evidence. Third, such revisionism could also violate the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, which has been interpreted to prohibit admission of “testimonial” hearsay in criminal trials.To adhere to the historical definition of the Coconspirator Exception to the Hearsay Rule, prosecutors should stop arguing that the conspiracy joined by the declarant and defendant may include purely lawful conduct, and courts encountering such arguments should reject them, lest they find themselves conducting new trials after the rights of convicted defendants find vindication on appeal. Civil litigants should also resist the revisionist interpretation of the Exception, which threatens immense and unnecessary discovery burdens

One More Call to Respect the Time of Grand Jurors

This Article replies briefly to the robust response that Professor Frank O. Bowman III submitted in answer to my earlier contribution to this Issue

Reducing the Discount Rate

This article presents two arguments against the “discounting” of future human lives as part of cost benefit analysis, or CBA. Our first argument is that because CBA has thus far ignored evidence of rising health care expenditures, it underestimates the “willingness to pay” for health and safety that future citizens will likely exhibit, thereby undervaluing their lives. Our second argument is that until recently CBA has ignored the trend of improved material conditions in developed countries, and most agencies continue to ignore it entirely. As time advances, residents of rich countries tend to live better and spend more, meaning that a strict economic evaluation of future lives would discount the relatively impoverished lives of present citizens compared to the projected luxurious and healthy existence of our expected descendents, just the opposite of what happens in agency practice

State Sentencing Policy and New Prison Admissions

As the academy\u27s focus has turned to sentencing in the wake of Blakely v. Washington and United States v. Booker, most commentators have continued their benign neglect of actual sentencing practices as they occur in state courts, not to mention whether and how such policies are effective in achieving the goals of criminal justice.This note examines trends in state sentencing policies and prison populations from the perspective of a would-be state reformer hoping to decrease her state\u27s prison budget. Economic pressures, efficiency arguments, and social justice claims have combined to cause some states to desire lower prison populations, but few empirical studies exist of how states actually go about reducing their prison costs.This note begins with an examination of twenty years of prison admissions data, tracking the trends of new admissions into state prison systems. After identifying outlier states - those states whose low admissions defied national and regional trends - the note presents three state case studies evaluating the policy choices contributing to the lower admissions. Next, recommendations are made for would-be reformers based on these results.In addition to incarceration alternatives, special focus is placed on North Carolina\u27s fiscal note program, which, coupled with computer modeling of expected prison populations, has helped the state conduct informed debate about criminal sentencing. In the wake of sentencing reforms, the state has moved from having the nation\u27s top incarceration rate to a place in the middle of the pack, an impressive result given the continued priority of tough sentences for violent offenders

Confronting Coventurers: Coconspirator Hearsay, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause

Using the example of a recent major terrorism prosecution, this article addresses “coventurer hearsay” in the context of the ongoing Confrontation Clause debate concerning the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Crawford v. Washington. Courts have recently begun admitting hearsay evidence pursuant to a revisionist interpretation of the coconspirator statement exception to the hearsay rule. Under the new “lawful joint venture” theory, a hearsay statement may be admitted as a coconspirator statement if made in furtherance of a “joint undertaking” - defined as pretty much any cooperative activity - even if the “conspiracy” is not illegal. Because this new interpretation of an old hearsay exception cannot plausibly be described as “firmly rooted” in American law, nor does the hearsay included in the new exception bear “indicia of reliability,” coventurer hearsay would have been inadmissible at criminal trials under pre-Crawford Sixth Amendment jurisprudence. The overwhelming majority of coventurer statements, however, are not “testimonial,” meaning that current Confrontation Clause law does not prohibit their use against criminal defendants. Accordingly, coventurer hearsay demonstrates that defendants suffer prejudice from the Court’s reinterpretation of the Sixth Amendment. After reviewing evidence that the Crawford majority misinterpreted the historical background of the Confrontation Clause, the article argues that the Court should reexamine whether the Confrontation Clause, or perhaps the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, should be read to prohibit the admission of dangerously unreliable hearsay against criminal defendants, even if such hearsay is “nontestimonial.” The case of the Holy Land Foundation - in which the United States government closed America’s largest Muslim charity and convicted five leaders of funneling money to Hamas - provides a concrete example of coventurer hearsay run amok. The prosecution case relied heavily on “joint venture” hearsay, unreliable out-of-court statements admissible only pursuant to a new interpretation of the coconspirator exception, a hearsay exception likely to have been found unconstitutional under the Confrontation Clause jurisprudence upended by Crawford. The result exemplifies the injustice made possible by recent case law and provides a new challenge to the testimonial theory of confrontation law

No, You “Stand Up”: Why Prosecutors Should Stop Hiding Behind Grand Juries

This Article argues that prosecutors should not allow grand juries to consider indicting defendants whom the prosecutors themselves believe should not be indicted. To illustrate the problems with this practice, this Article uses the example of St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch – who encouraged deliberations by the grand jury that heard evidence concerning the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, despite personally believing that Brown’s killer, police officer Darren Wilson, should not be indicted. The arguments against allowing grand juries to conduct such needless deliberations include: (1) the exercise wastes the time of citizens forced to serve on grand juries; (2) the deliberations might, despite the prosecutor’s wishes, result in indictments contrary to the interests of justice; and (3) by “passing the buck” to the grand jury, the prosecutor evades accountability for his own decisions

Tinkering with the Machinery of Life

Recent adjustments by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) to their cost–benefit analysis procedures could cause tremendous changes to federal regulation. For decades, federal agencies have calculated the value of a statistical life (VSL) and have used that number when evaluating the costs and benefits of proposed regulations. If a regulation was expected to save lives, the number of lives saved could be multiplied by the VSL to monetize the benefits. Because, however, lives saved in the future were given the same nominal value as lives saved in the present, the real value of future lives was substantially eroded by discounting to present value, generally at annual rates of 3 and 7 percent. In other words, if a life saved today is worth $8 million, a life saved in ten or twenty years would be worth far less. A discount rate of 7 percent erodes half the value of a life expected to be saved in 2022 and three-quarters of one expected to be saved in 2032. This process hinders the regulation of slow-acting perils, such as workplace carcinogens and global climate change.Now the EPA and the DOT have begun inflating VSLs when calculating the benefits of regulations. Before subjecting lifesaving benefits to the same discounting applied to other costs and benefits, the agencies adjust the values upward to reflect the expected higher income (and associated willingness to pay to avoid risks of harm) enjoyed by future persons. This seemingly minor procedural change can radically alter the expected benefits of major regulations, and the regulated community will likely oppose the agencies’ efforts to more accurately calculate future benefits. Observers of federal regulation should track this battle carefully and contact other federal agencies as they decide whether to adopt the “VSL inflation” procedure

The People v. Their Universities: How Popular Discontent Is Reshaping Higher Education Law

Surveys taken since 2015 reveal that Americans exhibit stark partisan divisions in their opinions about colleges and universities, with recent shifts in attitudes driving changes to higher education law. In recent years, Democrats have become slightly more positive about higher education. Concurrently, Republicans have become extremely more negative, and a majority of Republicans now tells pollsters that colleges and universities have an overall negative effect on the country. Particularly in legislative chambers controlled by Republicans, public and elite dissatisfaction with higher education has led to legal interventions into the governance of universities, with new laws related to faculty tenure, the treatment of undocumented immigrant students, the use of state funds for disfavored programs, the composition of university governing boards, and campus speech, among other topics. At the federal level, during the Obama Administration advocates persuaded the Department of Education to demand sweeping changes to how institutions adjudicate allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault. At the behest of different advocates and critics, Trump Administration officials have rescinded the prior guidance and are in the process of enacting new regulations on the same campus processes. Higher education has real problems-such as skyrocketing tuition-which inspire real anger. Right-wing media outlets amplify this discontent, and politicians respond to voter outrage with hearings and legislation, deepening the lack of confidence. These phenomena are likely to endure and even to increase in intensity. Accordingly, higher education law has entered a new era in which college and university leaders must anticipate growing legislative intervention into day-to-day campus operations. Remaining true to institutional values in a newly difficult legal environment will challenge higher education administrators across the country, both at private and at public institutions. In particular, leaders of public institutions will face increasingly daunting tasks in states with conservative electorates