Criminal Law - Insane Persons - Influence of Mental Illness on the Parole Return Process

Defendants in the criminal process are divided into rigidly exclusive categories of mental health. The competent to stand trial are first separated from the incompetent. Then the competent are divided on the basis of their mental state at the time of their acts between the sane and the insane. As long as these rigid categories are administered in an adversary trial system, some misdirection of victims of serious mental illness into the penal system is almost inevitable. Even where mental illness might otherwise prevent conviction, those accused of non-capital felonies are not likely to raise the question, and few courts are likely to do so for them. Once such misdirection has taken place at trial, the possible inappropriateness of imprisoning the mentally ill remains largely beyond the reach of legal examination. After conviction there are few occasions which one might call justiciable events when the balanced considerations of criminality and mental illness stand precisely defined for flexible, dispassionate examination. The questions which might be asked are obscured in the vague penumbra of post-conviction due process, and the issues are further blurred by the fact that present prisons and mental hospitals both tend to be thought of as primarily custodial. Hence, mentally ill convicts generally percolate through the penal system and eventually become eligible for parole. At that stage, their mental illnesses may not be recognized or, if recognized, not thought to present an unreasonable risk under a liberal parole policy. Many such convicts are therefore granted parole. Thus the criminal process thrusts upon parole administrators the problem of handling these victims of serious mental illness. This study by a psychiatrist and a law student is based upon the case histories of twelve such parolees with whose mental illness the Michigan parole administration was forced to deal. These case histories are contained in the appendix

Criminal Law - Insane Persons - Competency to Stand Trial

Mental unsoundness in a person accused of a crime raises two distinct legal questions. One is the question of the individual\u27s responsibility for his behavior and the other is the question of the individual\u27s competency to enter into the legal procedures of trial or punishment. In recent years considerable attention has been given to matters of responsibility, but relatively little attention has been paid to the problem of incompetency and especially to the consequences of incompetency proceedings. In order to analyze and evaluate the operations of the Michigan law in the area of incompetency to stand trial, two psychiatrists joined two law students to conduct field research at Ionia State Hospital to which all persons found incompetent to stand trial are committed. This comment reports and analyzes the results of this field research. Attention is given also to the merits of alternative procedures for the commitment and treatment of incompetents

Model-independent search for CP violation in D0→K−K+π−π+ and D0→π−π+π+π− decays

A search for CP violation in the phase-space structures of D0 and View the MathML source decays to the final states K−K+π−π+ and π−π+π+π− is presented. The search is carried out with a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1 collected in 2011 by the LHCb experiment in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. For the K−K+π−π+ final state, the four-body phase space is divided into 32 bins, each bin with approximately 1800 decays. The p-value under the hypothesis of no CP violation is 9.1%, and in no bin is a CP asymmetry greater than 6.5% observed. The phase space of the π−π+π+π− final state is partitioned into 128 bins, each bin with approximately 2500 decays. The p-value under the hypothesis of no CP violation is 41%, and in no bin is a CP asymmetry greater than 5.5% observed. All results are consistent with the hypothesis of no CP violation at the current sensitivity

Branching fraction and CP asymmetry of the decays B+→K0Sπ+ and B+→K0SK+

An analysis of B+ → K0 Sπ+ and B+ → K0 S K+ decays is performed with the LHCb experiment. The pp collision data used correspond to integrated luminosities of 1 fb−1 and 2 fb−1 collected at centre-ofmass energies of √ s = 7 TeV and √ s = 8 TeV, respectively. The ratio of branching fractions and the direct CP asymmetries are measured to be B(B+ → K0 S K+ )/B(B+ → K0 Sπ+ ) = 0.064 ± 0.009 (stat.) ± 0.004 (syst.), ACP(B+ → K0 Sπ+ ) = −0.022 ± 0.025 (stat.) ± 0.010 (syst.) and ACP(B+ → K0 S K+ ) = −0.21 ± 0.14 (stat.) ± 0.01 (syst.). The data sample taken at √ s = 7 TeV is used to search for B+ c → K0 S K+ decays and results in the upper limit ( fc · B(B+ c → K0 S K+ ))/( fu · B(B+ → K0 Sπ+ )) < 5.8 × 10−2 at 90% confidence level, where fc and fu denote the hadronisation fractions of a ¯b quark into a B+ c or a B+ meson, respectively

Factors Associated with Revision Surgery after Internal Fixation of Hip Fractures

Background: Femoral neck fractures are associated with high rates of revision surgery after management with internal fixation. Using data from the Fixation using Alternative Implants for the Treatment of Hip fractures (FAITH) trial evaluating methods of internal fixation in patients with femoral neck fractures, we investigated associations between baseline and surgical factors and the need for revision surgery to promote healing, relieve pain, treat infection or improve function over 24 months postsurgery. Additionally, we investigated factors associated with (1) hardware removal and (2) implant exchange from cancellous screws (CS) or sliding hip screw (SHS) to total hip arthroplasty, hemiarthroplasty, or another internal fixation device. Methods: We identified 15 potential factors a priori that may be associated with revision surgery, 7 with hardware removal, and 14 with implant exchange. We used multivariable Cox proportional hazards analyses in our investigation. Results: Factors associated with increased risk of revision surgery included: female sex, [hazard ratio (HR) 1.79, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.25-2.50; P = 0.001], higher body mass index (fo

Criminal Law - Insane Persons - Influence of Mental Illness on the Parole Return Process

Defendants in the criminal process are divided into rigidly exclusive categories of mental health. The competent to stand trial are first separated from the incompetent. Then the competent are divided on the basis of their mental state at the time of their acts between the sane and the insane. As long as these rigid categories are administered in an adversary trial system, some misdirection of victims of serious mental illness into the penal system is almost inevitable. Even where mental illness might otherwise prevent conviction, those accused of non-capital felonies are not likely to raise the question, and few courts are likely to do so for them. Once such misdirection has taken place at trial, the possible inappropriateness of imprisoning the mentally ill remains largely beyond the reach of legal examination. After conviction there are few occasions which one might call justiciable events when the balanced considerations of criminality and mental illness stand precisely defined for flexible, dispassionate examination. The questions which might be asked are obscured in the vague penumbra of post-conviction due process, and the issues are further blurred by the fact that present prisons and mental hospitals both tend to be thought of as primarily custodial. Hence, mentally ill convicts generally percolate through the penal system and eventually become eligible for parole. At that stage, their mental illnesses may not be recognized or, if recognized, not thought to present an unreasonable risk under a liberal parole policy. Many such convicts are therefore granted parole. Thus the criminal process thrusts upon parole administrators the problem of handling these victims of serious mental illness. This study by a psychiatrist and a law student is based upon the case histories of twelve such parolees with whose mental illness the Michigan parole administration was forced to deal. These case histories are contained in the appendix

Criminal Law - Insane Persons - Competency to Stand Trial

Mental unsoundness in a person accused of a crime raises two distinct legal questions. One is the question of the individual\u27s responsibility for his behavior and the other is the question of the individual\u27s competency to enter into the legal procedures of trial or punishment. In recent years considerable attention has been given to matters of responsibility, but relatively little attention has been paid to the problem of incompetency and especially to the consequences of incompetency proceedings. In order to analyze and evaluate the operations of the Michigan law in the area of incompetency to stand trial, two psychiatrists joined two law students to conduct field research at Ionia State Hospital to which all persons found incompetent to stand trial are committed. This comment reports and analyzes the results of this field research. Attention is given also to the merits of alternative procedures for the commitment and treatment of incompetents

Flexible Substitution Patterns in Models of Mode and Time of Day Choice: New evidence from the UK and the Netherlands

Modelling the temporal response of travellers to transport policy interventions has rapidly emerged as a major issue in many practical transport planning studies and is recognised to hold particular challenges. The importance of congestion and its variation over the day, together with the emergence of time-dependent road user charging as a policy tool, emphasise the need to understand whether and how travellers will change the timing of their journeys. For practical planning studies, analysts face a major issue of relating temporal changes to other behavioural changes that are likely to result from policy or exogenous changes. In particular, the relative sensitivity of time and mode switching has been difficult to resolve. This paper describes a study undertaken to determine the relative sensitivity of mode and time of day choice to changes in travel times and costs and to investigate whether evidence exists of varying magnitudes of unobservable influences in time of day switching. The study draws on data from three related stated preference studies undertaken over the past decade in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands and uses error components logit models to investigate the patterns of substitution between mode and time of day alternatives. It is concluded that the magnitude of unobserved influences on time switching depends significantly on the magnitudes of the time switches considered. With time periods of the magnitude generally represented in practical modelling, i.e. peak periods of 2-3 hours, time switching is generally more sensitive in this data than mode switching. However, the context of the modelling and the extent to which relevant variables can be measured will strongly influence these results

Population of the 2(ms)(+) mixed-symmetry state of Ba-140 with the alpha-transfer reaction

International audienceBackground: Identification of proton-neutron mixed-symmetric one-quadrupole phonon excitations (the 2(ms)(+) states) of atomic nuclei provides information on the isovector part of the residual nucleon-nucleon interaction. It was predicted that the 2(ms)(+) state of particular nuclei close to the U(5) limit of the interacting boson model, in particular Ba-140, should be considerably populated by alpha-transfer reactions [C. E. Alonso et al., Phys. Rev. C 78, 017301 (2008)].Purpose: We aim at the identification of the 2(ms)(+) mixed-symmetry state (MSS) of radioactive Ba-140 and investigate its population by the alpha-transfer reaction as a suitable tool to selectively populate MSSs and as a potential new signature for its mixed-symmetric character.Method: A gamma-ray spectroscopy experiment was performed in inverse kinematics in order to populate the 2(ms)(+) state of Ba-140 by alpha-transfer from a C-nat target on Xe-136 beam ions. The population of the candidate for the 2(ms)(+) state of Ba-140 was measured relative to the population of the 2(1)(+) state.Results: The candidate for the 2(ms)(+) state of Ba-140 was populated by a transfer three times weaker than predicted. Another 2(+) state that can be ruled out as the MSS was in turn as strongly populated by the a transfer as predicted for the MSS.Conclusions: The relative population of 2(+) states by alpha-transfer cannot serve as a new signature for MSSs, since other 2(+) states are also strongly populated. Nevertheless, the substantial population of the MSS candidate of Ba-140 by alpha transfer qualifies this type of reaction as suitable tool to excite MSSs and study their electromagnetic decay properties