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Full-Text Articles in Law

When Children And The Elderly Are Victims: Balancing The Rights Of The Accused Against Those Of The Victim, Charles W. Ehrhardt Jul 2001

When Children And The Elderly Are Victims: Balancing The Rights Of The Accused Against Those Of The Victim, Charles W. Ehrhardt

Scholarly Publications

Child sexual abuse prosecutions involve difficult societal issues as well as complex evidentiary and constitutional problems. The abusive act frequently occurs in private upon a young victim who proves an unpersuasive witness during a subsequent trial. Often only two eye witnesses exist, the victim and the accused, thus making the victim's credibility a critical issue. Because of the nature of these prosecutions, there has been a special focus on the principles regulating the admissibility of evidence in child abuse cases. Balancing the due process and constitutional rights of the accused against the interests of both the child and society in …


Rethink The Laws Relating To Fathers (Change: With The Decline In Married Mothers And Traditional Families, The Legal Image Of Dads Needs Re-Examination), Jane C. Murphy Jun 2001

Rethink The Laws Relating To Fathers (Change: With The Decline In Married Mothers And Traditional Families, The Legal Image Of Dads Needs Re-Examination), Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

This "marital presumption" permitted courts to assume a set of biological facts in the name of preserving the sanctity and stability of what was assumed to be the cornerstone of a healthy society — the traditional family of husband, wife and children. In the last decades of the 20th century, science developed paternity testing with results approaching certainty. Despite the availability of DNA testing, the marital presumption is still used in many courtrooms to answer the question of who is the legal father. What one scholar has called "the law's struggle to preserve the fiction of an older moral order" …


Child Witnesses And Procedural Fairness, Bennett L. Gershman Jan 2001

Child Witnesses And Procedural Fairness, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Professor Gershman's Article notes that courts and lawmakers have changed procedural and evidentiary rules to protect child witnesses in child sexual abuse cases. Gershman discusses how courts apply the changed rules with careful scrutiny in an effort to ensure that the interests of the child witness and the accused defendant are appropriately balanced.


Conjoined Twins: The Limits Of Law At The Limits Of Life, George J. Annas Jan 2001

Conjoined Twins: The Limits Of Law At The Limits Of Life, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Conjoined twins have been the subject of scientific exhibits, medical study, human curiosity, and even entertainment, but until the year 2000, conjoined twins had never been the subject of a courtroom battle. A unique case that was the subject of two British court decisions deserves study.1 The case illustrates the difficulty of applying legal principles to unprecedented life-and-death decisions involving proposed medical interventions for children — particularly when parents and physicians disagree about what should be done.


India: Training Teachers For Children With Mental Retardation, Sharon A. Raver Jan 2001

India: Training Teachers For Children With Mental Retardation, Sharon A. Raver

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

India is a country of contradictions. On one hand, India is a modern country moving toward becoming a world leader in computer technology and boasts the second most computer literate population in the world (Babington, 2000; Kumar, 1999). On the other hand, India is a developing nation with 14 constitutionally recognized languages, 25% of the world's malnourished (Babington, 2000), and a majority that practices customs in everyday life that are 5,000 year old (Kumar, 1999). India is rich in natural resources and yet, because its population grows as quickly as its economy, it has one of the world's lowest per-capita …


A Suggestion On Suggestion, Richard D. Friedman, Stephen J. Ceci Jan 2001

A Suggestion On Suggestion, Richard D. Friedman, Stephen J. Ceci

Articles

Part I of the full article briefly describes the history and current slate of research into children's suggestibility. In this part, we argue that, although psychological researchers disagree considerably over the degree to which he suggestibility of young children may lead to false allegations of sexual abuse, there is an overwhelming consensus that children are suggestible to a degree that, we believe, must be regarded as significant. In presenting this argument, we respond to the contentions of revisionist scholars, particularly those recently expressed by Professor Lyon. We show that there is good reason to believe the use of highly suggestive …