The Dangers of Eyewitness Identification: A Call for Greater State Involvement to Ensure Fundamental Fairness

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Perry v. New Hampshire, the Court’s first case on the admissibility of eyewitness identifications in thirty-five years. The Court held that the Due Process Clause does not require a preliminary judicial assessment of the reliability of an eyewitness identification that was not procured under unnecessarily suggestive circumstances orchestrated by law enforcement. The Court retained factors for assessing reliability when police misconduct is involved that were adopted in the 1970s, despite the emergence of new data highlighting the inherent unreliability of eyewitness identification. This Note argues that the Supreme Court did not go far enough in Perry to ensure fundamental fairness, and that state courts should interpret their own constitutions to provide greater protections for defendants. New Jersey adopted a comprehensive model in 2011 that more adequately accounts for the unreliability of eyewitness identification. Other states should follow New Jersey’s lead and adopt a similar approach

The Fourth Amendment Fetches Fido: The Future of Dog Searches

For over thirty-five years, the Supreme Court has grappled with the controversial issue of affirmative action and race preference. Beginning with Justice Lewis Powell’s influential opinion in Bakke v. U. Cal. Davis in 1978, leeway has been permitted for admissions policies that take account of race, as long as it is not given determinative weight so as to exclude consideration of nonminority candidates, or used to set quotas. As the Court has become increasingly conservative, however, its license for race preference has tightened considerably, and it has become receptive to “reverse discrimination” plaintiffs challenging such policies in universities and the workplace. Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) purported to immunize good faith race-conscious university admissions for a period of twenty-five years, but with the retirement of its author, Sandra Day O’Connor, the Court chose to revisit the matter in Fisher v. University of Texas, decided on June 24. While remanding to the lower courts without a definitive ruling on UT’s program, it is the contention of this article that the decision may well seal the fate of race-sensitive decision-making by public actors. Seven justices, over the dissent of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, sign onto an exacting strict scrutiny standard of review anachronistically borrowed from cases challenging pernicious discrimination motivated by a desire to exclude and subjugate disfavored groups. This “searching” examination, which treats affirmative action in the interest of diversity as inherently suspect and presumptively unlawful, is unjustified legally and unwise as a matter of policy. Implicitly, the Court adopts a paradigm of white male victimhood, which has turned anti-discrimination provisions on their head. The article also challenges the contention that affirmative action inevitably sacrifices “merit” to preference, by confronting the misconceptions regarding merit, and particularly the glorification of standardized testing

Spatial inequalities in life expectancy within postindustrial regions of Europe: a cross-sectional observational study

Objectives To compare spatial inequalities in life expectancy (LE) in West Central Scotland (WCS) with nine other postindustrial European regions.<p></p> Design A cross-sectional observational study.<p></p> Setting WCS and nine other postindustrial regions across Europe.<p></p> Participants Data for WCS and nine other comparably deindustrialised European regions were analysed. Male and female LEs at birth were obtained or calculated for the mid-2000s for 160 districts within selected regions. Districts were stratified into two groups: small (populations of between 141 000 and 185 000 people) and large (populations between 224 000 and 352 000). The range and IQR in LE were used to describe within-region disparities.<p></p> Results In small districts, the male LE range was widest in WCS and Merseyside, while the IQR was widest in WCS and Northern Ireland. For women, the LE range was widest in WCS, though the IQR was widest in Northern Ireland and Merseyside. In large districts, the range and IQR in LE was widest in WCS and Wallonia for both sexes.<p></p> Conclusions Subregional spatial inequalities in LE in WCS are wide compared with other postindustrial mainland European regions, especially for men. Future research could explore the contribution of economic, social and political factors in reducing these inequalities.<p></p&gt

The Airway Microbiome After Burn and Inhalation Injury

The human microbiome is composed of the entirety of microorganisms living on and in the human body along with their genetic material. Recent work has demonstrated the importance of these bacterial communities, or microbiota, in health and disease, including in the airways. Though the airways contain mechanisms to clear bacteria, disruption of homeostasis by illness and injury can induce conditions favorable to bacterial colonization and growth. Inhalation injury endured by burn victims disrupts homeostasis by damaging the airway epithelium and inhibiting innate immune responses, increasing the risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), infection, and pneumonia. Inhalation injury is a known cause of ARDS, which is partly diagnosed by hypoxia in the airways as indicated by a PaO2/FiO2 ratio ≤ 300. There is a known link between ARDS and bacterial infection in the airways, but the relationship is complex and poorly understood. Diagnosis of airway bacterial infection in this patient population can be challenging due to limitations in detecting and identifying the colonizing organism. The goal of this dissertation research was to identify differences in the airway microbiota among patients with PaO2/FiO2 ratios ≤ 300 and > 300 after experiencing burn and inhalation injury. Bacterial DNA was extracted from therapeutic bronchial washings of patients hospitalized for burn and inhalation injury at the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center and sequenced. Patients with PaO2/FiO2 ratio ≤ 300 demonstrated increases in low-abundance bacteria as well as significant enrichment of Prevotella melaninogenica that was not altered by antibiotic treatment. Bacterial taxa among patients with PaO2/FiO2 ratio ≤ 300 were grouped into correlation networks that were distinct both in composition and predicted function from patients with PaO2/FiO2 ratio > 300. Further, predicted functions important in characterizing the communities were unique for each disease state, identifying changes in bacterial interactions and functional roles that may be important in progression of hypoxia and ARDS. This combination of metagenomics with advanced computational analyses allows identification of specific changes relevant to the entire community, providing focused hypotheses for further validation and investigation that may lead to new therapeutic targets for preventing bacterial infection after burn and inhalation injury.Doctor of Philosoph

The Final (Oral Ebola) Vaccine Trial on Captive Chimpanzees?

Could new oral vaccine technologies protect endangered wildlife against a rising tide of infectious disease? We used captive chimpanzees to test oral delivery of a rabies virus (RABV) vectored vaccine against Ebola virus (EBOV), a major threat to wild chimpanzees and gorillas. EBOV GP and RABV GP-specific antibody titers increased exponentially during the trial, with rates of increase for six orally vaccinated chimpanzees very similar to four intramuscularly vaccinated controls. Chimpanzee sera also showed robust neutralizing activity against RABV and pseudo-typed EBOV. Vaccination did not induce serious health complications. Blood chemistry, hematologic, and body mass correlates of psychological stress suggested that, although sedation induced acute stress, experimental housing conditions did not induce traumatic levels of chronic stress. Acute behavioral and physiological responses to sedation were strongly correlated with immune responses to vaccination. These results suggest that oral vaccination holds great promise as a tool for the conservation of apes and other endangered tropical wildlife. They also imply that vaccine and drug trials on other captive species need to better account for the effects of stress on immune response

trans-Diaqua­bis(2,2′-bipyridine-κ2 N,N′)ruthenium(II) bis­(trifluoro­methane­sulfonate)

The title compound, trans-[Ru(bpy)2(H2O)2](CF3SO3)2 (bpy = 2,2′-bipyridine, C10H8N2), crystallized from the decomposition of an aged aqueous solution of a dimeric complex of cis-Ru(bpy)2 in 0.1 M triflic acid. The RuII ion is located on a crystallographic inversion center and exhibits a distorted octa­hedral coordination with equivalent ligands trans to each other. The Ru—O distance is 2.1053 (16) Å and the Ru—N distances are 2.0727 (17) and 2.0739 (17) Å. The bpy ligands are bent, due to inter-ligand steric inter­actions between H atoms of opposite pyridyl units across the Ru center. The crystal structure exhibits an extensive hydrogen-bonding network involving the water ligands and the trifluoromethane­sulfonate counter-ions within two-dimensional layers, although no close hydrogen-bond inter­actions exist between different layers

University Response to Mass Shooting in Lewiston

Series of email communications from University of Maine authorities in response to the mass-casualty shooting in Lewiston, Maine, Wednesday, October 25, 2023. Eighteen people were murdered and 13 injured. Responses include acknowledgement of the mass shooting, notification of the Orono and Machias campuses closing on Thursday, October 26, 2023, and a listing of available community health resources for those experiencing trauma in the wake of the event

Trends in Drug Overdose Mortality Rates in Kentucky, 2019-2020

There is no abstract associated with this publication

Changing Trends in Drug Overdose Mortality in Kentucky: An Examination of Race and Ethnicity, Age, and Contributing Drugs, 2016-2020

Objectives: Increased drug overdose mortality among non-Hispanic Black people in the United States in the past 5 years highlights the need for better tailored programs and services. We evaluated (1) changes in drug overdose mortality for various racial and ethnic groups and (2) drug involvement to inform drug overdose prevention efforts in Kentucky. Methods: We used Kentucky death certificates and postmortem toxicology reports from 2016-2020 (provisional data) to estimate changes in age-adjusted drug overdose death rates per 100 000 standard population. Results: The age-adjusted drug overdose death rate per 100 000 standard population among non-Hispanic Black residents doubled from 2016 (21.2) to 2020 (46.0), reaching the rate among non-Hispanic White residents in 2020 (48.7; P = .48). From 2016 to 2020, about 80% of these drug overdose deaths involved opioids; heroin involvement declined about 20 percentage points; fentanyl involvement increased about 30 percentage points. The number of psychostimulant-involved drug overdose deaths increased 513% among non-Hispanic Black residents and 191% among non-Hispanic White residents. Cocaine-involved drug overdose deaths increased among non-Hispanic Black residents but declined among non-Hispanic White residents. Drug overdose death rates were significantly lower among Hispanic residents than among non-Hispanic White residents. Conclusions: Increased opioid-involved overdose deaths among non-Hispanic Black residents in Kentucky in combination with rapidly expanding concomitant psychostimulant involvement require increased understanding of the social, cultural, and illicit market circumstances driving these rapid trend changes. Our findings underscore the urgent need to expand treatment and harm reduction services to non-Hispanic Black residents with substance use disorder