The Case for Jury Sentencing

There are powerful historical, constitutional, empirical, and policy justifications for a return to the practice of having juries, not judges, impose sentences in criminal cases. The fact that Americans inherited from the English a mild preference for judge sentencing was more a historical accident than a case of thoughtful policy. Jury sentencing became quite widespread in the colonial and postcolonial eras as a reflection of deep-seated mistrust of the judiciary. The gradual drift away from jury sentencing was driven not by a new-found faith in the judiciary, but rather by the now discredited paradigm of rehabilitationism. Now that that paradigm has shifted to neoretribution, and that the essential moral character of the criminal law has been rediscovered, jurors should likewise be rediscovered as the best arbiters of that moral inquiry. A return to jury sentencing would also mesh nicely with the Court\u27s struggle in its Apprendi line of cases to find a sensible way to distinguish between elements and sentence-enhancers under the Sixth Amendment. A Sixth Amendment interpreted to include the right to jury sentencing would also restore the textual symmetry between the Sixth and Seventh Amendments. There are no constitutional, empirical, or policy reasons why a defendant accused of committing negligence has the right to have both his guilt and damages assessed by a jury, but a criminal defendant has only half that right

Sexual Assault Study: Differences by Age of Victim

Poster originally presented to the Anchorage Police Department and the 2004 Alaska Summit on Violence Against Women.This issue of Anchorage Community Indicators Series 2, "Sexual Assault Study," describes the spatial patterning and geographical concentration of 541 sexual assaults reported to the Anchorage Police Department in 2000–2001 by age of victim. Analysis compares the 210 victims that were less than 21 years old to the 339 victims that were 21 years old or older. Most suspects were older than their victims. On average, suspects were 5 years older than victims.This research was supported by Grant No. 2000-RH-CX-K039 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and by a UAA Faculty Development Grant to the second author.Data / Sexual assault densities by age of victim (maps) / Alcohol use (by victim; by suspect) / Race (of victim; of suspect) / Location (pick-up location; assault location) / Day of incident / Time to report / Suspect's age / Relationshi

Visual attitude orientation and alignment system

Active vehicle optical alignment aid and a passive vehicle three-dimensional alignment target ensure proper orientation and alignment plus control of the closure range and rate between two bodies, one in controlled motion and one at rest

IMAGING OF LOW REDSHIFT QSOs WITH WFPC2

Observations with the PC2 CCD of the Hubble Space Telescope are described of two bright QSOs of redshift ~0.3. 1403+434 is IR-bright and radio-quiet, and 2201+315 is radio-loud with extended structure. Exposures were taken with the F702W and F555W filters. The images are deconvolved on their own and combined with 0.5 arcsec ground-based images. Both host galaxies have the form and luminosity of bright ellipticals, with nuclei of 1-2 times higher luminosity. 1403+434 is strongly interacting while 2201+315 may be in later stages of a merger, both with a smaller companion. Both host galaxies have compact knots and other small-scale peculiar features. Some general remarks are made based on the total program sample of 6 QSOs.Comment: 11 pages, Plain TeX, 3 figures available from [email protected] To appear in the Astronomical Journal

Variance Reduction For A Discrete Velocity Gas

We extend a variance reduction technique developed by Baker and Hadjiconstantinou [1] to a discrete velocity gas. In our previous work, the collision integral was evaluated by importance sampling of collision partners [2]. Significant computational effort may be wasted by evaluating the collision integral in regions where the flow is in equilibrium. In the current approach, substantial computational savings are obtained by only solving for the deviations from equilibrium. In the near continuum regime, the deviations from equilibrium are small and low noise evaluation of the collision integral can be achieved with very coarse statistical sampling. Spatially homogenous relaxation of the Bobylev-Krook-Wu distribution [3,4], was used as a test case to verify that the method predicts the correct evolution of a highly non-equilibrium distribution to equilibrium. When variance reduction is not used, the noise causes the entropy to undershoot, but the method with variance reduction matches the analytic curve for the same number of collisions. We then extend the work to travelling shock waves and compare the accuracy and computational savings of the variance reduction method to DSMC over Mach numbers ranging from 1.2 to 10.Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanic

Monoids in the mapping class group

In this article we survey, and make a few new observations about, the surprising connection between sub-monoids of mapping class groups and interesting geometry and topology in low-dimensions.Comment: 36 pages, 18 figure

Half-time and high-speed running in the second half of soccer

This study investigated if the quantity of high-speed running (movements >15 km.h-1) completed in the first 15 minutes of competitive football matches differed from that completed in the corresponding 15 minutes of the second half. Twenty semi-professional soccer players (age 21.2 ± 3.6 years, body mass 76.4 ± 3.8 kg, height 1.89 ± 0.05 m) participated in the study. Fifty competitive soccer matches and 192 data files were analysed (4 ± 2 files per match) using Global Positioning Satellite technology. Data were analysed using 2-way repeated measures ANOVA and Pearson correlations. No differences were found between the first 15 min of each half for the distance completed at high-speed (>15 km.h-1) or sprinting (>21 km.h-1), or in the number of sprints undertaken (p>0.05). However, total distance covered was shorter (1st half vs. 2nd half: 1746 ± 220 vs. 1644 ± 224 m; p<0.001) and mean speed lower (1st half vs. 2nd half: 7.0 ± 0.9 vs. 6.6 ± 0.9 km.h-1; p<0.001) in the first 15 min of the second half compared to the first. The correlations between the duration of the half-time interval and the difference in the high-speed running or sprinting between first and second halves (0-15 min) were very small (r=0.08 [p=0.25] and r=0.04 [p=0.61] respectively). Therefore, this study did not find any difference between the amount of high-speed running and sprinting completed by semi-professional soccer players when the first 15 minutes of the first and second half of competitive matches were compared The maintenance of high-speed running and sprinting, as total distance and mean speed declined, may be a function of the pacing strategies adopted by players in competitive matches

The Prevalence and Effects of Occupational Licensing

This study provides the first nation-wide analysis of the labor market implications of occupational licensing for the U.S. labor market, using data from a specially designed Gallup survey. We find that in 2006, 29 percent of the workforce was required to hold an occupational license from a government agency, which is a higher percentage than that found in studies that rely on state-level occupational licensing data. Workers who have higher levels of education are more likely to work in jobs that require a license. Union workers and government employees are more likely to have a license requirement than are nonunion or private sector employees. Our multivariate estimates suggest that licensing has about the same quantitative impact on wages as do unions -- that is about 15 percent, but unlike unions which reduce variance in wages, licensing does not significantly reduce wage dispersion for individuals in licensed jobs.occupational licensing; regulation; wages