Incapacitating Dangerous Repeat Offenders (or Not): Evidentiary Restrictions on Armed Career Criminal Act Sentencing in \u3cem\u3eUnited States v. King\u3c/em\u3e

On March 30, 2017, in United States v. King, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that a sentencing court may not rely on information in bills of particulars for the Armed Career Criminal Act’s different-occasions inquiry. In so doing, the Sixth Circuit joined the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Tenth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits in holding that sentencing courts deciding the different-occasions question may rely only on the evidentiary sources that the United States Supreme Court approved in Taylor v. United States in 1990 and Shepard v. United States in 2005. In contrast, on January 2, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in United States v. Evans suggested that the Taylor- and Shepard-evidentiary restrictions might not apply to the different-occasions inquiry. This Comment argues that the Sixth Circuit decided correctly in King, but also that the court’s decision conflicts with congressional intent, and thus Congress should amend the act to resolve this conflict

Woodville recharge basin aquifer protection study

88 slides in Powerpoint presentation

Remedying Wrongful Convictions Through DNA Testing: Expanding Post-Conviction Litigants’ Access to DNA Database Searches to Prove Innocence

Forensic science is used as evidence in criminal cases regularly. Recently, however, scientists have criticized several commonly used forensic methods that are unreliable, scientifically invalid, and have contributed to wrongful convictions. In contrast, DNA testing, which is reliable and valid, is a powerful resource for exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals. Congress and all fifty states have enacted statutes providing access to post-conviction DNA testing. Only nine states, however, have enacted statutes granting post-conviction litigants access to another important resource—law enforcement DNA database searches. Even though Congress amended the federal post-conviction DNA testing statute to provide access to DNA database searches in 2016, only applicants incarcerated for federal offenses are eligible for relief under this statute. This Note argues that, to remedy wrongful convictions, all state legislatures should amend post-conviction DNA testing statutes to provide access to DNA database searches. Alternatively, Congress should amend the federal post-conviction DNA testing statute to provide post-conviction litigants wrongly convicted of state offenses with access to DNA database searches

Nested Scales of Spatial and Temporal Variability of Soil Water Content Across a Semiarid Montane Catchment

Topographic redistribution of water has been represented by various terrain metrics (e.g., topographic wetness index, slope, and upslope accumulated area). This type of landscape characterization has promoted the use of terrain metrics to inform how spatial patterns of soil volumetric water content (VWC) influence streamflow, ecological processes, and associated nutrient fluxes. However, evaluation of what these static terrain metrics reflect has only been accomplished in a few catchments. Additionally, previous research suggests that relationships between topographic metrics and VWC could be different across catchments through time. Here we measured VWC from snowmelt through summer drydown across a semiarid montane catchment. Using a spatially nested sampling design, we assessed the spatiotemporal variability of VWC from plot (tens of meters) to landscape scales (hundreds of meters). Variance of riparian area VWC increased as the catchment dried, while upland variance decreased, highlighting the utility of delineating distinct landscape units when considering spatial variability of moisture, rather than calculating statistics across the landscape as a whole. In contrast to previous research, we found that the relationship between VWC and topographic metrics persisted through the dry catchment state, suggesting that patterns of topographic redistribution of water during snowmelt continued to influence dry season VWC despite variability in plot scale vertical processes (e.g., evapotranspiration). Future research should focus on resolving the relationship between catchment moisture state and VWC variability as a function of wetness state, seasonality, and magnitude of precipitation, topography, and soil depth

Landscape Analysis of Soil Methane Flux Across Complex Terrain

Relationships between methane (CH4) fluxes and environmental conditions have been extensively explored in saturated soils, while research has been less prevalent in aerated soils because of the relatively small magnitudes of CH4 fluxes that occur in dry soils. Our study builds on previous carbon cycle research at Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest, Montana, to identify how environmental conditions reflected by topographic metrics can be leveraged to estimate watershed scale CH4 fluxes from point scale measurements. Here, we measured soil CH4 concentrations and fluxes across a range of landscape positions (7 riparian, 25 upland), utilizing topographic and seasonal (29 May–12 September) gradients to examine the relationships between environmental variables, hydrologic dynamics, and CH4 emission and uptake. Riparian areas emitted small fluxes of CH4 throughout the study (median: 0.186 µg CH4–C m−2 h−1) and uplands increased in sink strength with dry-down of the watershed (median: −22.9 µg CH4–C m−2 h−1). Locations with volumetric water content (VWC) below 38 % were methane sinks, and uptake increased with decreasing VWC. Above 43 % VWC, net CH4 efflux occurred, and at intermediate VWC net fluxes were near zero. Riparian sites had near-neutral cumulative seasonal flux, and cumulative uptake of CH4 in the uplands was significantly related to topographic indices. These relationships were used to model the net seasonal CH4 flux of the upper Stringer Creek watershed (−1.75 kg CH4–C ha−1). This spatially distributed estimate was 111 % larger than that obtained by simply extrapolating the mean CH4 flux to the entire watershed area. Our results highlight the importance of quantifying the space–time variability of net CH4 fluxes as predicted by the frequency distribution of landscape positions when assessing watershed scale greenhouse gas balances

XID II: Statistical Cross-Association of ROSAT Bright Source Catalog X-ray Sources with 2MASS Point Source Catalog Near-Infrared Sources

The 18806 ROSAT All Sky Survey Bright Source Catalog (RASS/BSC) X-ray sources are quantitatively cross-associated with near-infrared (NIR) sources from the Two Micron All Sky Survey Point Source Catalog (2MASS/PSC). An association catalog is presented, listing the most likely counterpart for each RASS/BSC source, the probability Pid that the NIR source and X-ray source are uniquely associated, and the probability Pnoid that none of the 2MASS/PSC sources are associated with the X-ray source. The catalog includes 3853 high quality (Pid>0.98) X-ray--NIR matches, 2280 medium quality (0.98>Pid>0.9) matches, and 4153 low quality (0.9>Pid>0.5) matches. Of the high quality matches, 1418 are associations that are not listed in the SIMBAD database, and for which no high quality match with a USNO-A2 optical source was presented for the RASS/BSC source in previous work. The present work offers a significant number of new associations with RASS/BSC objects that will require optical/NIR spectroscopy for classification. For example, of the 6133 Pid>0.9 2MASS/PSC counterparts presented in the association catalog, 2411 have no classification listed in the SIMBAD database. These 2MASS/PSC sources will likely include scientifically useful examples of known source classes of X-ray emitters (white dwarfs, coronally active stars, active galactic nuclei), but may also contain previously unknown source classes. It is determined that all coronally active stars in the RASS/BSC should have a counterpart in the 2MASS/PSC, and that the unique association of these RASS/BSC sources with their NIR counterparts thus is confusion limited.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, 5 table

Draft Genome Sequence of Chloracidobacterium sp. CP2_5A, a Phototrophic Member of the Phylum Acidobacteria Recovered from a Japanese Hot Spring

The phylum Acidobacteria contains a single known phototrophic member, Chloracidobacterium thermophilum, which was recovered from a hot spring metagenome from Yellowstone National Park. Here, we expand the diversity of the genus Chloracidobacterium with a genome recovered from a hot spring in Japan, extending the known range of this lineage to a new continent

Draft Genome Sequences of a Novel Lineage of Armatimonadetes Recovered from Japanese Hot Springs

Here, we report two draft genome sequences from a novel lineage within the Armatimonadetes phylum recovered from metagenomes sequenced from Japanese hot spring microbial mats. These organisms are aerobic and represent a new lineage related to the characterized Chthonomonas and Fimbriimonas groups, and they expand the diversity of this enigmatic phylum