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In this article, I focus on a practice that is legally referred to as assisting or abetting abortion. Using the example of Margarethe Hardegger (1882–1963), a Swiss women’s rights activist and socialist who was charged with this crime in 1915, I analyze how she defended her assistance before the criminal court of the city of Bern. I seek to show how her conception of voluntary action as feminist women’s solidarity entered into a battle of interpretation with patriarchal thought and legal-economic ideas of order, whose exponents sought to impute a commercial character to her engagement. Additionally, I explore how the medical profession positioned itself in this dispute and what the women who had abortions with her help had to say. In light of this case study, the article aims to bring out the multiform interpretations of a voluntary social practice and thus gain insight into the contemporary power dynamics and forms of resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with dementia suffer not only from symptoms but also from social vulnerability including an increased risk of abuse and criminal victimization. In existing quantitative studies, the data are based on reports by people with dementia themselves, their family members, or concerned persons, which may be insufficient to accurately identify the actual mechanisms and circumstances of abuse or victimization. To speculate on the exact realities of people with dementia victimization, we extracted criminal sentences of perpetrators collected from the Japanese judgment database. A total of 152 cases in approximately 23 years included various victimization situations; these cases were classified into six categories of harm (physical, psychological, neglect, sexual, financial, and miscellaneous) and five categories of perpetrator (spouse, child, other family, supporter, and stranger or other). There were 93 cases of physical victimization by the spouse or child, which were statistically analyzed. Through case inspections, we provide an accurate victimization process of people with dementia and propose a four-class typology of physical victimization by the family: care exhaustion, antipathy to people with dementia, self-righteous or self-contained family, and continuous abuse type. These case scrutinies and their classifications may contribute to interventions regarding the support of people with dementia and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since emerging in the late 1970s and early 1980s, neo-institutional theory has been a popular framework for understanding law, legal institutions, and policies on the books and in action. Neo-institutional theory has been particularly useful for explaining diverse criminal justice phenomena, from changes in penal law and policy statements to on-the-ground practices across police departments, courts, carceral facilities, and community corrections. This review describes how scholars of the criminal legal system have used neo-institutional theory and where there is room for further utilization. Additionally, it discusses how and why neo-institutional theory is particularly useful for sociolegal scholars, and not only those studying criminal legal organizations and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A historically informed understanding of ḥawāla and other varieties of informal value transfer systems (IVTS) requires consideration of the normative and cultural elements which structure and facilitate transactions in globalized financial markets. This paper argues that the Sharia-based normative and cultural framework of ḥawāla is created in the social relations of Muslim networks and that, in a criminal law context, this normativity can be used as a tool to discern between legitimate and illegitimate transactions. The new institutional economists' (NIE) explanation of ḥawāla, which predominates in scholarly work, neglects this common frame of reference built on community, shared belief, and normative rules and expectations. The NIE views economic institutions through the lens of profitmaking and self-interest centred institutional development. Moreover, in a criminal law context, the profit-oriented perspective of law overlooks the normative characteristics that sometimes appear in the transactional characteristics of these transactions. When evidence of these characteristics is presented to the court, they offer a useful tool to differentiate legitimate from illegitimate transfers of value. Legitimate transfers will frequently be facilitated through dense networks in which the normativity and culture of ḥawāla frame the rules and expectations of parties to the transaction. Criminal transactions, on the other hand, typically involve fewer participants, sometimes from different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, are profit-orientated, and involve means of enforcement such as the use of violence which traditional networks do not employ. The NIE perspective does not fully account for non-western legal orders or for commercial practices in which exchange remains culturally, historically, and socially embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the COVID-19 pandemic forced prisons into extended lockdowns, people-in-prison have been increasingly reliant on remote access technologies such as videoconferencing to interact with the outside world from their carceral context. During the pandemic, both corrective services and criminal courts found that these communication technologies could adequately facilitate court appearances, legal conferencing, health services and visitations. Now, despite the lessening panic regarding COVID-19, there are suggestions that authorities are keen to continue, if not increase, the usage of video links meaning that people-in-prison will experience decreasing human contact. The argument is that COVID-19 "successes" are being used as an excuse to cement remote hearings and visits. This points to a future of absolute confinement uninterrupted by "inconvenient" physical court attendance or human visitors. This article will focus on the "digital vulnerability" of people-in-prison, that is, the intersection between the vulnerabilities of incarcerated people with the use of remote communication technologies such as videoconferencing or video links, and the digital inequalities that may be provoked or solved. The article will draw on qualitative research – fieldwork interviews with judicial officers, lawyers and associated criminal justice professionals – that reveal critical perspectives on the impacts of digital transformation on vulnerable people-in-prison. For instance, when asked about the vulnerabilities of people-in-prison, one defence lawyer (DL1) expressed the view that "no one cares about defendants" or their vulnerabilities, nor their abilities to engage with video links, comprehend or play any role in their own remote legal matters. We analyse our source materials through a framework of vulnerability theory and the developing concept of digital vulnerability. In this way, we seek to offer new knowledge regarding prison digital transformation, specifically the relationship between digital technologies in correctional environments and the vulnerable incarcerated population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of in‐depth interviews with eight district court judges in North Carolina revealed over 40 practices that judges can adopt to become more trauma‐informed in their work. These practices map onto SAMHSA's framework for a trauma‐informed approach, demonstrating that abstract principles can translate into concrete actions in the courtroom setting. Analysis revealed an additional core principle of trauma‐informed judicial practice—Rehabilitation and Healing—and several areas where judges can deepen their commitment to trauma‐informed care—engagement with peer support programming; greater attention to cultural, historical, and gender issues; and application of trauma‐informed practice in adult criminal court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treatment courts have played a key role in criminal justice reform by offering an alternative to incarceration for individuals who have substance use and mental health disorders. The treatment court model requires programs to complete evaluations, as well as measure potential racial and ethnic disparities in outcomes. This study contributes to literature by using the Racial and Ethnic Disparities (RED) Program Assessment Tool to see if treatment courts (n = 151) have fidelity to the model by completing regular evaluation and to assess for racial and ethnic disparities in graduation rates. Treatment courts in this study, for the most part, were not faithful to the model by completing regular evaluation. Specifically, only 34% of the programs regularly examined graduation outcomes by race and ethnicity. Additionally, racial and ethnic disparities did exist where white participants were more likely than African American and Hispanic participants to graduate treatment court. Implications for policy advocacy, treatment court practice, and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ruling n. 38485, 20 June 2019, of the Italian Supreme Court, III criminal section, addressed by the perspective of the law the very sensitive and new issue of telemedicine.This commentary deals with the issue of authorization of telemedicine activities by the health authority, starting from the Italian Court of Criminal Cassation, III section, decision n. 38485/2019. The case law explored the authorization of a health point, which carries out telemedicine services.Starting from the perspective discussed by Italian health regulations, the paper examines how the health act could be defined, with the possibilities offered by telecommunications, and how it now relates legally to the physical place where it takes place.Even if telemedicine opens the way to virtual spaces of health practice, the Ministry of Health Italian Guidelines pose functional and logistical issues to guarantee users’ safety and health care system accountability. Then, functional requirements for health legitimate practice, and their continuous monitoring, together with the responsibilities of the service centers, health professionals and health facilities, are discussed.The questioning of States’ health law, in a broad health system such as that of the Europe, characterized by autonomous health regulations, is extremely important for cross-border health policy with telemedicine, as overall regulatory compliance in health care is the ground criterion for risk prevention and patient safety, to be properly verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractMental health court diversionary programs are a key strategy to address over-representation of individuals with a mental illness in the criminal justice system. The study examined 2,476 individuals identified as eligible for mental health court diversion by the Statewide Community and Court Liaison Service (SCCLS) in New South Wales (NSW), Australia and compared reoffending of those granted and not granted court diversion. Individuals not diverted had 43% higher reoffending rate than those granted diversion. Predictors of non-diversion and reoffending included younger age, being male, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background, primary personality and/or substance use diagnosis and non-violent offence charges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delays at court are an everlasting and potentially consequential reality of criminal justice systems, although most would agree that the timely adjudication of cases is needed from both administrative, judicial, and individual perspectives. This paper uses administrative data and a policy reform in Denmark in 2007 to measure the unconfounded association between court delays – or, more specifically, time to adjudication – and criminal recidivism within 5 years. Results show that although court delays do not push more people into recidivism, the delays matter for how many crimes recidivists end up being convicted of. Also, criminality tends to be muted during the period from charge to adjudication (even in a context with low use of pretrial detention and no bail system), whereby court delays also matter for the timing of new crimes – a finding with important theoretical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Alauddin Law Development Journal is the property of Alauddin Law Development Journal (ALDEV) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article examines the problems associated with a possible change in the institution of judicial control in criminal pre-trial proceedings. It is stated that judicial control can be more effective if its efforts are focused on decisions which are consistent with the role of the court in adversarial criminal proceedings. The focus of judicial control is not just to ensure the legality of actions of the inquiry and investigative bodies, but also to guarantee the equality of the prosecution and defence parties during pre-trial proceedings. The author conducts a comparative legal study of foreign criminal procedure legislation, where in recent decades there have been significant changes in the court’s control function due to the introduction of a new participant to the criminal process - an investigating judge. The article analyses the approaches of foreign legislators to the essence and role of the institute of investigating judge in criminal proceedings, disclosure of powers and functions of an investigating judge, and also the procedure for acquiring the status of an investigating judge. It is determined that in France, an investigating judge performs investigative and judicial functions, and a judge for the control of liberties and detention performs judicial control functions. Currently, in Belgium, investigating judges are essentially pre-trial investigation bodies, but attached to courts of first instance. In Spain, the investigating judge exercises judicial control over measures of procedural coercion, considers complaints against decisions and actions of pre-trial proceedings. In Germany, the so-called ‘district judge’ actually exercises the powers of an investigating judge as an ‘inquiring judge’. They are directly involved in proving, introducing an element of competition into the process and strengthening the reliability of judicial evidence. The author concludes that this activity differs from the national model by more detailed regulation, including in the interests of the defence, with a general focus on the protection of individual rights, exclusion of accusatory bias and availability of effective guarantees for this [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is indicated that the process of modernization of the system of criminal justice bodies is underway in Ukraine, the purpose of which is to improve the system of public administration and improve mechanisms for protecting the rights and freedoms of citizens. In particular, the concept of criminal justice reform of Ukraine, approved by the Decree of the President of Ukraine dated 04/08/2008 No. 311/2008, was implemented in the aspect of updating criminal, criminal procedural and administrative tort legislation. As part of the humanization of criminal legislation, the following steps have been taken: felony crimes have been reclassified as criminal misdemeanors, the procedure for bringing to justice persons who have committed criminal misdemeanors has been simplified, and the work of criminal justice bodies has been optimized in the detection, investigation, and trial of cases. The scientific publication examines topical issues of the place and role of the investigator in criminal proceedings, including through a comparison of the procedural status of the investigator and the investigator. Taking into account the powers of the inquirer, defined by the law that introduces this institute, the burden on the specified subject of criminal proceedings is examined in comparison with the investigator on the example of a specific region, with statistical data on registered, completed and sent to court criminal proceedings. The norms of the current criminal procedural legislation are analyzed, which determine the authority of the inquirer in the process of carrying out a pre-trial investigation of criminal misdemeanors. The legal status of the inquirer as a subject of registration in the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations is outlined, the imperfection of the introduced norms is noted due to the limitation of the procedural powers of the head of the inquiry in comparison with the head of the investigative unit, and the negative procedural consequences ar e indicated due to some legislative gaps that require amendments to the current Criminal Code of the procedural code of Ukraine. Based on the results of the research, conclusions and proposals regarding the improvement of national legislation were formulated, and the prospect of further research on this t opic was determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We investigate the role that neighborhood socioeconomic contexts and defendant mobility patterns play in prosecutorial charge reductions. Methods: Using data from a large sample of criminal defendants prosecuted during 2010 to 2011 in New York County (N = 68,113), we analyze differences in charge reductions for defendants who reside and offend in low- and high-income areas, and for those who traverse socioeconomically divergent neighborhoods when committing crime. Results: Net of individual defendant characteristics, like gender and race, we find that defendants from low-income neighborhoods who offend in high-income locales are significantly less likely to benefit from discretionary charge reductions. Conclusions: Defendant mobility patterns play a key role in defining the social context of criminal punishment. This suggests it is essential to consider both where a defendant resides and where their crime is committed when assessing the role of ecological stereotypes and place-based attributions in criminal court actor decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many penal abolitionists, criminal courts have been complicit in mass incarceration. This Article argues that, unlike abolitionists, criminal justice minimalists should consider criminal courts part of the solution rather than the problem. Minimalist scholars have focused on advancing wide-scale public policy proposals, such as extensive decriminalization, through the work of legislatures. While such proposals are generally desirable, their sweeping nature may sometimes raise concerns over excessive risks to public safety and political feasibility. The shortcomings of promoting minimalism through legislatures highlight the advantages of criminal courts. By virtue of their case-by-case adjudication, criminal courts can play a key role in ensuring that governments exercise their penal powers only as a last resort, while remaining sensitive to the unique circumstances of each individual case. Their ability to exercise discretion and consider specific contexts and situations allows them to apply minimalist principles more fairly and in less objectionable ways politically. The Article points to three complementary potential principles that minimalism-oriented courts can and should adhere to: de minimis, ultima ratio (last resort), and penal restraint. It also proposes how the values and goals of criminal justice minimalism can inform the design of each principle. Together and apart, these principles empower courts to play a major role in reducing the overreach of criminal law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After advocates argued that circumstances attendant to late adolescent offenders make them less culpable for their offenses and better disposed to rehabilitation, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) held in January 2024 that it is unconstitutional to sentence eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds to life without parole.1 Last summer, Connecticut passed legislation providing a "second look" opportunity for parole to those incarcerated for lengthy prison sentences for crimes that they committed before they were twenty-one years old.2 In 2021, Rhode Island decreased the amount of time that youthful offenders must serve before they become eligible for parole, but its highest court is currently interpreting disputed provisions.3 Efforts to reduce lengthy sentences for late adolescents are grounded in scientific literature showing that "emerging adults" have great propensity for rehabilitation, rendering extraordinarily long prison sentences inappropriate.4 Recently, national conversation has focused on reducing the front-end of incarceration, by shrinking police presence and decriminalizing drug and other nonviolent crimes. Back-end decarceral efforts--so called "second look" sentencing and clemency initiatives--are either underappreciated or derided as reforms that legitimate a fundamentally unjust system. While I embrace the need to significantly shrink the quantity of people in prison, sentencing reforms for emerging adults can meaningfully reduce our carceral footprint. Also, disproportionality by race in extreme sentencing suggests that late adolescents are particularly likely to be sentenced based on systemic racism and implicit biases in policing, prosecution, and sentencing, rather than unique characteristics or facts of their crimes. Thus, effective "second look" efforts have the potential to address racial inequities. This essay explores three state efforts to reduce the carceral terms of late adolescents, evaluating the advocacy strategies and compromises made to achieve meaningful reform. The Supreme Court recognizes that minors are less culpable, less deterrable, and more capable of rehabilitation than adults. Significant research supports extending these findings to "emerging adults"--individuals under the age of twenty-five years old. Should this rehabilitative lens, grounded in science, be effectively harnessed to the "back-end" reforms focused on those who commit crimes prior to the age of twenty-five, the potential decarceral effects can be widespread. In the area of emerging adults and serious crime, criminal law minimalism means coupling the science about late adolescents with effective advocacy strategies to reduce our carceral population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focal point of transitional justice efforts in Cambodia have been recently-completed criminal prosecutions at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia ("ECCC"). Like other international criminal justice institutions, the ECCC has been framed as not only a criminal court, but also as an institution capable of helping achieve various transitional justice goals such as improving the rule of law and respect for human rights domestically in Cambodia. This Article identifies troubling connections between the ECCC experience and the Cambodian government's increasing use of rule by law tactics in recent years. The Article identifies two related ways in which the ECCC experience may have further damaged, rather than helped mend, the rule of law in Cambodia. First, by providing training to Cambodian legal actors beholden to the autocratic government, the ECCC has engaged in a form of "negative capacity-building" by enhancing the abilities of such actors to weaponize Cambodia's legal system against perceived threats to the dominant Cambodia People's Party ("CPP"). Second, by playing into the dominant social perception in Cambodia that powerful CPP-aligned actors remain the ultimate arbiters of contentious legal cases, even when producing inconsistent, incompatible outcomes, the Court's social messaging has lent some legitimacy to rule by law tactics in Cambodia. These negative rule of law outcomes are especially troubling given the authoritarian backsliding Cambodia has recently experienced. Moreover, the potential negative rule of law legacy of the ECCC should serve as a cautionary tale against the notion that international criminal law prosecutions solely produce positive rule of law effects in post-atrocity States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how juvenile waiver policies may be leading to a reduction in the rehabilitative nature of the juvenile justice system. The first section discusses the value of the juvenile justice system. Here, the beginning of the juvenile justice system and why the juvenile justice system is important will be summarized. The second section explains the movement that is being made toward a more punitive approach in regard to juvenile delinquents and how this could lead to the erosion of the juvenile justice system. Next is a discussion of how waivers play a part in the erosion and how their continued use could prove very dangerous for the juvenile justice system. The next section will look at the implications of the erosion and what could potentially happen if we lost the juvenile system. Last, there will be a glance at possibilities for the future, along with suggestions on how to improve the use of waivers. Overall, this paper will show that the use of juvenile waivers may be leading the United States away from a rehabilitative system for juveniles to a smaller version of an adult criminal court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forensic geoscientists assist with the investigation of locating and characterizing suspected illegal activities and provide evidence for criminal or civil courts of law. Geoforensic search in terrestrial environments can be challenging, depending on the item(s) of interest that are being looked for, the available search teams, the equipment deployed and the search area(s) itself. This article briefly details the current efforts that geoscientists are making to assist these terrestrial investigations, and provides some relevant case studies and discusses future developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lawyers, scholars, and activists have long sought to incorporate ecocide into the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to address corporate and governmental impunity for massive and severe ecological damage, including the hanms caused by climate change. This Article uses the framework of racial capitalism to examine and critique the proposed criminalization of ecocide. Coined by South African scholars and activists and refined by political theorist Cedric Robinson, the theory of racial capitalism offers valuable insights on the root causes of the elimate crisis and the manifold injustices it inflicts on marginalized states and peoples. While most discussions of climate justice focus on the disproportionate impacts of climate change on those who contributed least to the problem, this Article examines the processes through which racial capitalism plunders the land, labor, and natural wealth of states and peoples racialized as inferior to generate profits for global elites. These processes immiserate most of the world's population, subject marginalized communities to the "slow violence" of polluting industry, destabilize the planet's ecosystems, generate prodigious quantities of greenhouse gases, and deprive subaltern populations of the resources needed to adapt to climate change and other socio-ecological crises. In other words, the fossil fuelbased capitalist world economy that caused the climate crisis was sparked and sustained by slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism (including its latest incarnation, neoliberalism). The Article highlights two core features of racial capitalism: its racial stratification of humans for the purpose of profit making and its eco-destructive logic. It explains international law's complicity with these core features through legal doctrines that construct nature as property and justify the subordination of non-European peoples by portraying them as the backward and barbaric "other" who must be civilized through continuous economic, political, and military interventions. Applying these insights to the proposal to codify ecocide, the Article concludes that the proposed definition ofecocide may reinforce rather than subvert racial capitalism's core features by ( 1) focusing on individual culpability and spectacular acts of ecological destruction while obscuring racial capitalism's inherently predatory, eco-destructive logic; (2) perpetuating international law's civilizing mission through the selective prosecution of the racialized "other'; and (3) devaluing nature, subaltern communities, and world views antithetical to racial capitalism through the incorporation of cost-benefit analysis into the definition of ecocide. Recognizing the interconnectedness of slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, and climate change, the Article calls for reparative and restorative forms ofjustice instead ofpunitive approaches that scapegoat individuals for the structural ills of racial capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research yields inconsistent results with regard to differences among type of counsel in criminal cases. Studies in the area generally compare the effectiveness of indigent versus retained counsel, and public defenders versus assigned counsel, and focus on broad categories of crime. The present work expands this literature through comparing case outcomes between assigned and retained counsel in the processing of criminal trespassing cases. It also contributes through measuring type of counsel in relation to the imposition of charge enhancements, a variable largely absent from the research literature. Results suggest that type of counsel does impact case outcomes, as defendants with assigned counsel were more likely to have a charge enhancement, be sentenced to jail, and spend more time in jail. Focusing on less serious offenses provides a more reflective account of what often occurs in court given that most crimes are less serious in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, Taiwan's government proposed reforms to the Indigenous Specialized Criminal Court (ISC) within its criminal court system (court system). Situated within the contemporary theoretical framework of transitional justice, this article explores the theoretical significance of these reforms and examines their actual state of implementation. Firstly, the article points out that the court system has led to structural injustices like the erasure of culture and socio-economic disadvantages for indigenous peoples, highlighting the limitations of the conventional transitional justice model in addressing these injustices. As a response, the ISC reform adopts strategies that differ from the conventional model. The article then attempts to develop an enhanced transitional justice model that includes structural injustices within its scope and explains the ISC reform initiatives and their inherent transitional justice significance. Finally, by evaluating the implementation status of the ISC reform, the article elucidates its theoretical implications and the feedback it offers to contemporary theoretical debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Humanities & Educational Sciences Journal is the property of Humanities & Educational Sciences Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

It is indicated that in the early days of June 2024, the judges of the Supreme Court appealed to the members of the Scientific Advisory Council with a request to provide scientific conclusions regarding case No. 466/525/22 (the case concerned the application of the provisions of Part 3 of Article 233 of the Criminal Procedure Code). It emerged from the appeal that the criminal proceedings based on the cassation appeal of the prosecutor against the decision of the Lviv Court of Appeals dated Octobe 2, 2023 were referred to the joint chamber of the Criminal Court of Cassation as part of the Supreme Court. In this scientific publication, the authors attempted to examine the situation that arises during searches in emergency cases within the framework of the problem of prioritizing the protection of human rights. It is argued that given the legal nature and content of the above constitutional provisions, it should be concluded that part three of Article 30 of the Basic Law of Ukraine should be interpreted as a direct effect provision. This means that it prevents a participant in criminal proceedings on the side of the prosecution (prosecutor, investigator, inquirer) from making a decision to enter a person's home or other property unless the case is urgent and the purpose does not comply with the provisions of the said provision of the Constitution of Ukraine, taking into account an individual assessment of the circumstances of a particular case. It is summarized that in the absence of a clear definition of the term «urgent» in the criminal procedure legislation, it is advisable to apply the principle of in dubio pro tributario (priority with the most favorable interpretation of the rule of law)). Given that we are talking about an exceptional case of restriction of the constitutional right to inviolability of the home outside of judicial control, it is important to apply a literal (not extended) interpretation of the content of part three of Article 30 of the Constitution of Ukraine. Therefore, the authorized participants in criminal proceedings, when deciding on an urgent search, are obliged to find out whether the delay during the reasonably foreseeable time required to apply to the investigating judge, obtain a search warrant and conduct it in the normal course of events will inevitably lead to the consequences provided for in Article 30 of the Constitution of Ukraine; what specific circumstances of the case indicate the urgency of the entry into the home or other property, which must be in direct causal connection with the loss (destruction, etc.) of property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Belgium is one of very few countries that legally allow euthanasia for suffering caused by psychiatric illness. In the first criminal trial in Belgium of physicians involved in euthanasia, three physicians recently faced the accusation of "murder by poisoning," for allegedly having failed to comply with several requirements of the Belgian Euthanasia Law in granting the euthanasia request a woman suffering from psychiatric illness. Although all three physicians were acquitted, the case generated much debate among policy makers, medical professionals, and the general public. Method: We use this trial as the starting point for a critical analysis of the adequacy of the three-level control system established in the Euthanasia Law, as it is applied in the evaluation of euthanasia requests from persons who suffer unbearably from a psychiatric illness. This analysis is based on information presented during the criminal trial as well as information on the euthanasia that was published in the press. Results: Our analysis highlights substantial problems in the assessment and granting of the euthanasia request. The patient was euthanized without it having been substantiated that her psychiatric illness had no prospect of improvement and that her suffering could not be alleviated. The threestep control system enshrined in the Law and promoted by the Federal Control and Evaluation Commission for Euthanasia appears to have failed at each level. Conclusion: To evaluate requests for euthanasia for mental suffering caused by psychiatric illness, the requirements of the Belgian Euthanasia Law should be complemented by mandating the advice of two psychiatrists, and face-to-face discussions between all physicians involved. In parallel with the process of evaluating the euthanasia request, a treatment track should be guaranteed where reasonable evidence-based treatments and recovery-oriented options are tried. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An act that constitutes an international crime of the first degree, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression, will always give rise to the individual criminal responsibility of the perpetrators and participants for the conduct committed. They must be brought to justice in national criminal courts or, in the event of failure of domestic jurisdictions, before the International Criminal Court, provided that its substantive and jurisdictional regulations so permit. In criminal proceedings, personal guilt will be determined or not and, where appropriate, the penalty to be imposed. However, the same typical and anti-juridical act, if certain international normative circumstances concur, will also generate the international responsibility of the responsible state, if the act is attributed to it as unlawful due to its de jure or de facto participation. This dispute over the state's non-compliance with a serious obligation under international law will be resolved, as it is an inter-state conflict, in the International Court of Justice and will generate state responsibility. Both responsibilities start from the same origin, the fact, their nature is different, but the two are complementary and interdependent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the re-establishment of slavery has become better known, the process by which this return was effected remains understudied. While scholars have examined the return of colour prejudice and the reactionary nature of civil law reforms, criminal justice has received little attention. Nevertheless, criminal tribunals, both exceptionally established and permanent, played an important role in the transition from a de jure regime of emancipation, in spite of de facto limits, to a renewal of the regime of enslavement. An examination of these court records reveals how long the government considered the colony needed jurisdictions of exception to deal with threats of rebellion; the variety of crimes that were considered 'rebellious'; and the transition from a regime of exception based on the emergency of rebellion to one based on the particularity of the slave system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-acquittal retrials for substantially the same offence are possible in jurisdictions that have provided statutory modifications to the common law double jeopardy principle. The pleas in bar of prosecution, autrefois acquit (previously acquitted) and autrefois convict (previously convicted), are predicated on a final verdict of acquittal or conviction by a court of competent criminal jurisdiction for substantially the same offence. Differentiating similarities between the increasing volume of overlapping offences is the most litigated aspect of the double jeopardy principle. Seminal common law jurisdictions have adopted variations of the same elements approach that examines whether two or more offences arising out of the same prohibited conduct are the same based on an assessment of whether there is an element in one offence not in the comparable offence. Through doctrinal analysis of superior court jurisprudence in the Unites States, England and Wales, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, this article evaluates judicial formulations for determining the sameness of offences in comparative perspective. While the analysis is intrinsic to each jurisdiction, judicial formulations may nonetheless shed light on similar issues coming before courts of criminal justice in cognate jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a substantial problem in Canada, leading to over 100,000 victims reporting to police in Canada annually. However, there is no legal definition or Canadian Criminal Code offence for IPV. The purpose of this study was to examine how judges in the Canadian prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba) define IPV in criminal cases. One hundred full-text, written judicial decisions from 2016 to 2022 were analyzed. Findings indicate that judges tend to discuss IPV as it relates to sexual and psychological violence; threats, coercive control, and physical violence; isolation and stalking; economic abuse and threats to take children away. Given that current Canadian law does not recognize psychological abuse as a criminal offence, this may signal a need for the creation of a legal definition of IPV to align with how more directly it is being discussed in courtrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current paper, we examine departmental and court decision-making in criminal cases against police officers. The study has two objectives: 1) to examine variables that impact departmental decisions in criminal cases against police officers, and 2) to examine factors that affect case disposition/conviction decisions by the courts. To achieve these objectives, we analyzed nationally representative arrest data using multiple statistical approaches. The results obtained revealed important patterns that are critical to our understanding of how the courts and police departments decide matters relating to police criminality. For instance, victim characteristics significantly influenced decision-making by both the police agency and the court. Also, officer characteristics and crime types were important indicators of how offending officers were punished by both the courts and the agencies that employed them. Specifically, officers whose cases involved child victims and officers who were not familiar with their victims had greater odds of being convicted. The implications of our findings for policy and research in policing, especially research on police misconduct, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effectiveness of court-appointed lawyers in comparison to private attorneys within China's criminal justice system, focusing on the "Lawyers for All" program. Utilizing data from Guangdong courts between 2018 and 2021 and covering five types of crimes, the research employs propensity score matching to evaluate sentencing lengths and probation rates. The findings indicate that defendants represented by court-appointed lawyers typically receive shorter sentences than those with private counsel, but they are less likely to be granted probation. Additionally, an innovative metric—"actual time served in prison"—suggests a reduced incarceration period for defendants with court-appointed attorneys. The study proposes that the collaborative role of court-appointed lawyers within the Chinese courtroom workgroup potentially influences these outcomes, contrasting with the adversarial nature of private attorneys. This analysis contributes to the broader understanding of legal representation in authoritarian regimes, highlighting the unique dynamics within China's legal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article examines verbal and non-verbal communication between the interpreter and the injured party in a video-recorded main hearing of a criminal matter at a court of first instance in Finland. The language of the court was Finnish and the interpreter and injured party communicated in French, the interpreter's B language and the injured party's second language. Due to differences in the two participants' ability to communicate in French, their verbal communication was characterized by significant problems. A salient feature of their communication consisted of abundant gesturing on the part of the injured party and the interpreter's mirroring of these gestures and putting them into words in her renditions. The interpreter's renderings combined mimicking of the injured party's gestures, language interpretation, and intermodal (gesture to language) interpretation, as well as elements that had been mentioned previously by other participants. The analysis highlights the problematic status of intermodal and multimodal translation from the viewpoint of legal norms, interpreting norms, and the theory of multimodality. It calls for increased sociolinguistic awareness among interpreters, legal experts, and interpreting studies scholars, as well as greater communication between the theory and practice of multimodality and intermodality in the dialogue interpreting of spoken languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that the administration of the criminal law by Australian courts causes harm to trans people that compounds with that already experienced. Specifically, court staff and judicial officers can maintain harm when they engage with court forms and provide judicial judgments: court forms that limit descriptions of sex/gender prevent self-identification and increase the potential for misgendering; further, judicial judgments often disregard, dismiss or deny the experiences of trans people through including inappropriate gendered terminology, deadnames and other problematic expressions. I conclude by highlighting three transformations that may disrupt these harms through allowing court staff and judicial officers to become aware of how they perpetuate harm against trans people. These transformations include reviewing and amending forms, educating and training staff and implementing additional supports. Importantly, to effectively disrupt harm, any transformation must be informed, and led, by trans people with lived, intersectional, experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the case of R v Smith, where the appellant and another man were convicted for joint enterprise murder, attempted murder, and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life. The appeal was based on a reference from the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) under the Criminal Appeal Act 1995. The CCRC raised concerns about the jury directions and the circumstantial nature of the prosecution case, but the court ultimately dismissed the CCRC reference, stating that the jury had not been misled and that the case did not fall under the scope of the Jogee decision. The article also highlights the confusion surrounding the application of Jogee and the court's strict approach to proving substantial injustice in cases involving changes in the law. [Extracted from the article]

The “war on drugs” in the Philippines has claimed thousands of people lives and has resulted in the detention of hundreds of thousands of drug users. Legal professionals working in criminal courts have adopted a “punitive paternalism” when dealing with these cases that presented plea bargaining, even in cases based on planted evidence, as helping defendants to change their life habits. The article argues that both the “war on drugs” and the “punitive paternalism” are rooted in the neoliberal policies imposed on the Philippines for decades responsible for reproducing gross income inequality and promoting a narrative blaming individuals for their own economic marginalisation. The analysis shows that the deployment of coercive strategies, such as the “war on drugs”, is still dependant on building consent, in the Gramscian sense. The article shows legal professionals’ contribution to the constitution of a hegemonic order in a context of widespread state-sponsored violence. La “guerra contra las drogas” en Filipinas se ha cobrado la vida de miles de personas y ha resultado en la detención de cientos de miles de consumidores de drogas. Los profesionales del derecho que trabajan en tribunales penales han adoptado un “paternalismo punitivo” al abordar estos casos en los que la negociación de culpabilidad, incluso en casos basados en pruebas plantadas, se presentaba como una ayuda a los acusados para cambiar sus hábitos de vida. El artículo sostiene que tanto la “guerra contra las drogas” como el “paternalismo punitivo” tienen sus raíces en las políticas neoliberales impuestas a Filipinas durante décadas, responsables de reproducir la enorme desigualdad de ingresos y promover una narrativa que culpa a los individuos por su propia marginación económica. El análisis muestra que el despliegue de estrategias coercitivas, como la “guerra contra las drogas”, todavía depende de la construcción del consentimiento, en el sentido gramsciano. El artículo evidencia la contribución de los profesionales del derecho a la constitución de un orden hegemónico en un contexto de violencia generalizada patrocinada por el Estado.

Introduction: Drug courts are criminal justice programs to divert people with substance use disorders from incarceration into treatment. Drug courts have become increasingly popular in the US and other countries. However, their effectiveness in reducing important public health outcomes such as recidivism and substance-related health harms remains ambiguous and contested. We used nationwide register data from Sweden to evaluate the effectiveness of contract treatment sanction, the Swedish version of drug court, in reducing substance misuse, adverse somatic and mental health outcomes, and recidivism. Methods: In this prospective cohort study, two quasi-experimental designs were used: difference-in-differences and the within-individual design. In the latter, we compared the risk of outcomes during time on contract treatment to, 1) parole after imprisonment and, 2) probation. Results: The cohort included 11,893 individuals (13% women) who underwent contract treatment. Contract treatment was associated with a reduction of 7 percentage points (95% CI: -.088, -.055) in substance misuse, 5 percentage points (-.064, -.034) in adverse mental health events, 9 percentage points (-.113, -.076) in adverse somatic health events, and 3 fewer charges (-3.16, -2.85) for crime in difference-in-differences analyses. Within-individual associations suggested that the same individual had longer times-to-event for all outcomes during contract treatment than on parole or on probation. Conclusions: Contract treatment is an effective intervention from both public health and criminal justice perspective. Our findings suggest that it is a superior alternative to incarceration in its target group. Further, we find that an implementation approach that is less punitive and more inclusive than what is typical in the US can be successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Section 75 of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) of 2003 overturned the principle in English law that a person cannot be retried for an offense of which he has been acquitted, recognizing advances in forensic science that uses modern analysis of DNA in adducing in evidence. The special plea of autrefois acquit can be overturned based on finding of compelling evidence after a previous acquittal of a suspect who can now be tried again for the same offense. The double jeopardy arises only after a lawful acquittal or autrefois convict of the accused for the first offense and these principles have allowed exceptions to the rule against double jeopardy developed by the courts. There is an analogous rule in common law courts based on the unreasonable splitting of the case when there is a severing of indictments which overrides the bar on the accused being retried for the same offense. This paper examines the difficulty of trying a defendant fairly in the English courts when the defense has pleaded an abuse of process and there is no clear overall argument for trial. This question needs an appraisal of legal ethics in criminal courts because a retrial of the accused on the same charge breaches the autrefois acquit doctrine, and severing of an indictment can cause the fair trial process to be undermined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable research examines discretion in judicial sentencing. However, little is known about the role of moral values or ideological beliefs in judicial sentencing decisions. The current study draws on insights from moral psychology to propose a model of judicial decision-making in which moral intuitions may inform sentencing both directly and indirectly via ideological beliefs about punishment (including general punitiveness and concern for offenders). We test this model using a statewide survey of Pennsylvania Common Pleas Criminal Court judges (N = 132), which included hypothetical sentencing vignettes. Results indicate that although moral intuitions were related to punishment ideology, moral intuitions were largely unrelated to judicial sentencing decisions, with a few exceptions. We interpret the results as suggesting that while moral and ideological preferences may be relevant under some circumstances, the role of morality in judicial decision-making may be constrained by legal or organizational factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes how the Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee incorrectly allowed rap lyrics evidence to prove the character of the accused in the case State v. Williams. Topics discussed include the Strong Nexus test of the direct connection between lyrics and the crime in question, stigmas and prejudicial effects of rap music when allowed into evidence, and potential of the Williams test under the Federal Rules of Evidence to create prejudicial bias in juries.

When is a horse not just a pack animal but a criminal accomplice? When is a lamb more than just livestock, but a form of contraband or a witness in court? Pursuing these questions in Van, a Kurdish-majority province of Turkey bordering Iran, this article examines how human-animal collaborations facilitated Kurdish smuggling economies, or what locals called qaçax. I conceptualize qaçax and kaçak (the Turkish word from which it originated), as the inexhaustible capacity to escape control. As the state's counterinsurgency against Kurdish guerillas established an extensive regime of surveillance and control in the Van borderlands, pack animals enabled smuggling convoys to evade state control and survive deadly anti-smuggling ambushes. Smugglers (and smuggler animals) also collaborated to elude the legal evidentiary processes and undermine allegations of smuggling brought against them. Rather than viewing animals as mere objects of legal knowledge, as existing studies have tended to do, the human-animal collaboration in court shows how the animals actually co-produce such knowledge. The smugglers' evasion of criminal charges in court further troubles the categories of illegality and informality that are frequently associated with smuggling, and permits us to think of smuggling economies beyond binaries of legal-illegal, formal-informal, human-nonhuman or living-nonliving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the largest institutional creditors in the United States is perhaps the most unexpected: the criminal court system. Each year, creditor courts collect more than $15 billion in revenues from criminal defendants. These fees are the lifeblood of the modern criminal legal system. In this Article, we shed new light on the legal and economic framework under which myriad stakeholders operate in creditor courts. By analyzing new survey data from clerks of court and 102 contracts with debt collection agencies in Florida, we provide general insights into how creditor courts distort incentives and teem with conflicts of interest. These inefficiencies regularly disrupt the financial stability of the judiciary as well as the lives of the largely indigent criminal defendants who remain indebted to this system. As we show, legislators, clerks of court, and the judiciary writ large subject criminal defendants to unconstrained coercion through the use of so-called "user fees." Leveraging campaign finance data and publicly available litigation material, we also find suggestive evidence of possible quid pro quo rewards between collection agencies assigned to collect debt on behalf of courts and the clerks of court tasked with administering them. We argue that state constitutional reforms that eliminate creditor courts and mandate courts be funded from general state revenues are the only meaningful ways to permanently redress the social costs generated by criminal monetary sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is currently considering legislating an offence of coercive control. Coercive controlling behaviour is currently criminalized in the UK, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and New South Wales, Australia. Potential benefits of the implementation of a coercive control offence in Canada include enhancing victim/survivor safety with access to protective orders; allowing police to respond in situations where physical violence is not occurring and, importantly, respond in a way that is reflective of the type of violence being enacted and the assessed risk; moving beyond an incident-based view of intimate partner violence to recognize patterns; improving perpetrator accountability and opportunities for risk management; sending a clear message that these behaviours are unacceptable; enhancing public awareness of coercive control; bringing the Criminal Code in line with other recent legislation; and creating consistency between family and criminal courts. This article summarizes the concept of coercive control, including gendered implications and risks for domestic homicide; the need for a coercive control offence, including support from professionals; and guidance for the implementation of a coercive control offence, including promising practices from international legislation, risk assessment, training for police and other professionals, and evaluation and data gathering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence is increasingly permeating many types of high-stake societal decision-making such as the work at the criminal courts. Various types of algorithmic tools have already been introduced into sentencing. This article concerns the use of algorithms designed to deliver sentence recommendations. More precisely, it is considered how one should determine whether one type of sentencing algorithm (e.g., a model based on machine learning) would be ethically preferable to another type of sentencing algorithm (e.g., a model based on old-fashioned programming). Whether the implementation of sentencing algorithms is ethically desirable obviously depends upon various questions. For instance, some of the traditional issues that have received considerable attention are algorithmic biases and lack of transparency. However, the purpose of this article is to direct attention to a further challenge that has not yet been considered in the discussion of sentencing algorithms. That is, even if is assumed that the traditional challenges concerning biases, transparency, and cost-efficiency have all been solved or proven insubstantial, there will be a further serious challenge associated with the comparison of sentencing algorithms; namely, that we do not yet possess an ethically plausible and applicable criterion for assessing how well sentencing algorithms are performing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research on the criminal court punishment of transferred youth relative to adult defendants has produced mixed findings; however, these disparities have not been examined in the context of intermediate and alternative sanctions. In Florida, judges have the discretion to assign a split sentence, which involves a mitigated term of imprisonment followed by a sentence to community supervision. Using data on felony cases sentenced under Florida's Criminal Punishment Code (N = 704,977), these results provide evidence of a "youth discount," with juveniles more likely than adults to receive split sentences. However, this pattern is observed regardless of whether a prison sentence is recommended by the guidelines, that is, even among cases in which a split sentence represents an upward departure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, the Belgian Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia referred a physician to the public prosecutor's office because it concluded that the physician might have violated the legal conditions for euthanasia. It was the commission's first referral since its establishment in 2002. However, in 2019, the Antwerp Court sitting in chambers decided not to pursue the physician in criminal court. News reports suggested that it had ruled that the physician did not perform euthanasia because the patient drank the lethal potion herself, thus classifying the act as physician-assisted suicide. However, the court did not make the reasons for its decision public.In this article, we consider the legal and ethical aspects of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. Although we discern clear differences between these end-of-life decisions, we also note important similarities. Countries that legalise voluntary physician-assisted dying may choose to legislate one or both end-of-life decisions. Providing a legal basis for both options can prevent major legal problems, ensuring that those doctors who violate the law are not acquitted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Verbal content analyses to differentiate truthful and fabricated statements, such as the Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA), are used in lie detection research as well as in practice to assess the credibility of statements in criminal court proceedings. Meta-analyses demonstrate validity of verbal content analyses above chance, but the traditional research paradigms usually lack either ecological or internal validity. The authors discuss the usage of immersive virtual reality scenarios to solve this dilemma, as both types of validity can be increased by this approach. In this integrative review of existing literature on the current use of virtual scenarios in forensic and victimology research, the authors extract strengths and limitations for possible VR studies in the context of verbal content analysis. Furthermore, novel ethical challenges involved are summarized and implications for future studies proposed. Overall, we argue in favor of using virtual reality scenarios to validate methods for verbal content analysis, but also urge to consider ethical limitations regarding unwanted short- and long-term aftereffects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]