Free Agency: The Constitutionality Of Methods That Influence A Presidential Elector’s Ability To Exercise Personal Judgment

When the Constitution of the United States went into effect on March 4, 1789, it established a new, hybrid form of government. As such, it created a complex and multifaceted process of electing our nation’s chief executive. Most notably, it granted states the power to choose a slate of presidential electors to debate the qualifications of the candidates selected by the voters. In recent history, however, certain states have established laws that severely limit the ability of presidential electors to exercise their right to vote for the candidates that they believe to be the best choice to sit in the Oval Office. In doing so, the states have essentially transformed the Electoral College from being an independent body of elected representatives, chosen to debate the merits of presidential candidates, into a toothless middleman that serves little to no purpose. This Note explores the original intended function of the Electoral College by reviewing the works of prominent Framers such as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Furthermore, it shows how the states, through their own election laws, can restore the integrity and effectiveness of the institution, without the need of amending our founding document

A Theory of Differential Punishment

A puzzle has long pervaded the criminal law: why are two offenders who commit the same criminal act punished differently when one of them, due to circumstances beyond her control, causes more harm than the other? This tradition of result-based differential punishment the practice of varying offenders\u27 punishment based on whether or not they cause specific statutory harms -has long stood as an intractable problem for scholars and jurists alike. This Article proposes a solution to this long-standing conceptual problem. We begin by introducing a dichotomy between two broad and exhaustive categories of ideological justifications for punishing criminal offenders. The first category, offender-facing justifications, includes many of the most familiar theories of punishment: deterrence, retribution, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. These offender-facing theories seek to justify punishment solely on the basis of facts about a criminal offender, such as her behavior, mental states, and perceived level of dangerousness. Yet, as we demonstrate, because offender-facing theories turn exclusively on facts about an offender and her conduct rather than on the occurrence of harm outside of the offender\u27s control they cannot provide adequate justification for the practice of differential punishment. We also identify a second category of justifications for punishment that, at least in part, conditions the severity of criminal punishment on the effects that a particular criminal offense has on its victims. These victim-facing justifications include both expressive theories of punishment, according to which offenders should be punished out of respect for the victims they have harmed, and vengeance-based theories of punishment, according to which punishment serves to recognize and legitimate victims\u27 desire for revenge against their offenders. Because victim-facing justifications focus on the harm that crimes cause to victims, they are, if valid, theoretically capable of justifying differential punishment. However, we will show that victim-facing justifications for punishment are not available for every instance of criminal misconduct. When a criminal offense (1) has no object (in that it is not done to anyone), (2) has a victim who either consented to, or was otherwise culpable for, the commission of the offense, or (3) has a victim who desires to show mercy to the offender, victim-facing theories cannot justify differential punishment, rendering the practice categorically unjustifiable in such cases. We conclude by arguing that in these instances, where differential punishment is unjustified, offenders should be punished as if they had not brought about the harmful result that would otherwise subject them to heightened punishment

Pain Management, Disorders of Consciousness, and Tort Law: An Emergency Tort to Fix a Longstanding Injustice

We address the systemic undertreatment of pain for individuals diagnosed with disorders of consciousness (DoC). Patients with DoC are often unable to communicate due to damage to their brains, and because DoC patients appear to be insensate, practitioners often believe that these patients are unable to feel pain and may not offer them analgesia, even before painful medical procedures. However, science shows that many DoC patients are able to feel pain, even if they are unable to communicate their distress. This Article moves from recognition of this problem to proposing solutions, in particular exploring what the legal system can do to improve pain management for DoC patients. We propose a novel tort, grounded in strict liability, in order to improve the management of pain for individuals with DoC. We explore how current tort law falls short, and why a new cause of action is the best mechanism to effectuate this necessary shift in medical practice. We aim to muster tort law to quickly reform the medical standard of care, to greatly reduce the risk that individuals with DoC will linger without adequate pain management, so that this medical injustice can be eliminated

On quantum limit of optical communications: concatenated codes and joint-detection receivers

When classical information is sent over a channel with quantum-state modulation alphabet, such as the free-space optical (FSO) channel, attaining the ultimate (Holevo) limit to channel capacity requires the receiver to make joint measurements over long codeword blocks. In recent work, we showed a receiver for a pure-state channel that can attain the ultimate capacity by applying a single-shot optical (unitary) transformation on the received codeword state followed by simultaneous (but separable) projective measurements on the single-modulation-symbol state spaces. In this paper, we study the ultimate tradeoff between photon efficiency and spectral efficiency for the FSO channel. Based on our general results for the pure-state quantum channel, we show some of the first concrete examples of codes and laboratory-realizable joint-detection optical receivers that can achieve fundamentally higher (superadditive) channel capacity than receivers that physically detect each modulation symbol one at a time, as is done by all conventional (coherent or direct-detection) optical receivers.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, submitted to IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), 201

Cycles of Failure: The War on Family, The War on Drugs, and The War on Schools Through HBO’s \u3cem\u3eThe Wire\u3c/em\u3e

Freamon, Bodie, and Zenobia’s statements cut straight to the heart of The Wire’s overarching theme: Individuals are trapped in a complex “cycle of harm” where social problems of inequality, crime, and violence are constantly reinforced. The Wire was a television drama that ran on HBO from 2002 through 2008, created by David Simon. The show focuses on the narcotics scene in Baltimore through the perspective of different stakeholders and residents of the city. The Wire highlights how self-perpetuating, interconnected, and broken social institutions act in concert to limit individual opportunity. These institutions squash attempts at reform by punishing good ideas and reinforcing the status quo. The Wire’s characters are all trapped in this cycle of harm. No matter how desperately individuals want to make change, the house always wins, and attempts to reform institutions often do more harm than good. This paper will discuss three specific institutions that play central roles in The Wire: The family unit, the War on Drugs, and the public-school systems. Each section will focus particularly on how past efforts at reform have contributed to institutional failure. David Simon’s critique of each institution and The Wire’s relevant lessons are also examined. Ultimately, this paper recognizes that because society’s failing institutions are inextricably linked, efforts at reform must target structural problems, in order to effect genuine change

Frequent Users of Hospital Emergency Departments in Korea Characterized by Claims Data from the National Health Insurance: A Cross Sectional Study

The Korean National Health Insurance, which provides universal coverage for the entire Korean population, is now facing financial instability. Frequent emergency department (ED) users may represent a medically vulnerable population who could benefit from interventions that both improve care and lower costs. To understand the nature of frequent ED users in Korea, we analyzed claims data from a population-based national representative sample. We performed both bivariate and multivariable analyses to investigate the association between patient characteristics and frequent ED use (4+ ED visits in a year) using claims data of a 1% random sample of the Korean population, collected in 2009. Among 156,246 total ED users, 4,835 (3.1%) were frequent ED users. These patients accounted for 14% of 209,326 total ED visits and 17.2% of $76,253,784 total medical expenses generated from all ED visits in the 1% data sample. Frequent ED users tended to be older, male, and of lower socio-economic status compared with occasional ED users (p < 0.001 for each). Moreover, frequent ED users had longer stays in the hospital when admitted, higher probability of undergoing an operative procedure, and increased mortality. Among 8,425 primary diagnoses, alcohol-related complaints and schizophrenia showed the strongest positive correlation with the number of ED visits. Among the frequent ED users, mortality and annual outpatient department visits were significantly lower in the alcohol-related patient subgroup compared with other frequent ED users; furthermore, the rate was even lower than that for non-frequent ED users. Our findings suggest that expanding mental health and alcohol treatment programs may be a reasonable strategy to decrease the dependence of these patients on the ED

Microglia-associated granule cell death in the normal adult dentate gyrus

Microglial cells are constantly monitoring the central nervous system for sick or dying cells and pathogens. Previous studies showed that the microglial cells in the dentate gyrus have a heterogeneous morphology with multipolar cells in the hilus and fusiform cells apposed to the granule cell layer both at the hilar and at the molecular layer borders. Although previous studies showed that the microglia in the dentate gyrus were not activated, the data in the present study show dying granule cells apposed by Iba1-immunolabeled microglial cell bodies and their processes both at hilar and at molecular layer borders of the granule cell layer. Initially, these Iba1-labeled microglial cells surround individual, intact granule cell bodies. When small openings in the plasma membrane of granule cells are observed, microglial cells are apposed to these openings. When larger openings in the plasma membrane occur at this site of apposition, the granule cells display watery perikaryal cytoplasm, watery nucleoplasm and damaged organelles. Such morphological features are characteristic of neuronal edema. The data also show that following this localized disintegration of the granule cell’s plasma membrane, the Iba1-labeled microglial cell body is found within the electron-lucent perikaryal cytoplasm of the granule cell, where it is adjacent to the granule cell’s nucleus which is deformed. We propose that granule cells are dying by a novel microglia-associated mechanism that involves lysis of their plasma membranes followed by neuronal edema and nuclear phagocytosis. Based on the morphological evidence, this type of cell death differs from either apoptosis or necrosis

Nothing Generic About It: Promoting Therapeutic Access by Overcoming Regulatory and Legal Barriers to a Robust Generic Medical Device Market

This Article addresses a paradox in American healthcare technology: a thriving market for generic drugs but a paucity of generic medical devices. Despite the success of generic pharmaceuticals in reducing healthcare costs, no analogous market exists for generic medical devices. This plays a part in keeping prices high while limiting access to affordable therapies. In this Article, we highlight the regulatory and legal barriers currently impeding the development of a generic medical device market in the United States. We explore differences between generic drugs and generic devices in FDA regulation, products liability, and patentability, all of which contribute to the absence of medical devices in clinical practice. We conclude with recommendations to foster more widespread development of generic medical devices

COX-2 expression mediated by calcium-TonEBP signaling axis under hyperosmotic conditions serves osmoprotective function in nucleus pulposus cells.

The nucleus pulposus (NP) of intervertebral discs experiences dynamic changes in tissue osmolarity because of diurnal loading of the spine. TonEBP/NFAT5 is a transcription factor that is critical in osmoregulation as well as survival of NP cells in the hyperosmotic milieu. The goal of this study was to investigate whether cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression is osmoresponsive and dependent on TonEBP, and whether it serves an osmoprotective role. NP cells up-regulated COX-2 expression in hyperosmotic media. The induction of COX-2 depended on elevation of intracellular calcium levels and p38 MAPK pathway, but independent of calcineurin signaling as well as MEK/ERK and JNK pathways. Under hyperosmotic conditions, both COX-2 mRNA stability and its proximal promoter activity were increased. The proximal COX-2 promoter (-1840/+123 bp) contained predicted binding sites for TonEBP, AP-1, NF-κB, and C/EBP-β. While COX-2 promoter activity was positively regulated by both AP-1 and NF-κB, AP-1 had no effect and NF-κB negatively regulated COX-2 protein levels under hyperosmotic conditions. On the other hand, TonEBP was necessary for both COX-2 promoter activity and protein up-regulation in response to hyperosmotic stimuli