Medical Jurisprudence Commons^™

Organizations As Evil Structures, Cary Federman, Dave Holmes

Cary Federman

Nursing practice in forensic psychiatry opens new horizons in nursing. This complex, professional, nursing practice involves the coupling of two contradictory socioprofessional mandates: to punish and to provide care. The purpose of this chapter is to present nursing practice in a disciplinary setting as a problem of governance. A Foucauldian perspective allows us to understand the way forensic psychiatric nursing is involved in the governance of mentally ill criminals through a vast array of power techniques (sovereign, disciplinary, and pastoral), which posit nurses as “subjects of power.” These nurses are also “objects of power” in that nursing practice is constrained …

Medico-Legal Collaboration Regarding The Sex Offender: Othering And Resistance, Mary Lay Schuster, Brian N. Larson, Amy D. Propen

Brian Larson

We examined medico-legal collaboration regarding dangerous sex offenders where state legislators have adopted statutes that determine the criteria for commitment to and discharge from civil commitment programs. The application of these statutes relies on medical diagnoses of pathologies such as paraphilia, anti-social personality disorder, and pedophilia along with prognoses for cure or recidivism. In our study, we examined court opinions from commitment hearings and observed a trial in federal court on the constitutionality of these commitments. We found that one result of this medico-legal collaboration is the marginalization or othering of sex offenders by essentializing, dividing, shaming, and impeaching them. …

Marijuana Agriculture Law: Regulation At The Root Of An Industry, Ryan Stoa

Ryan B. Stoa

Marijuana legalization is sweeping the nation. Recreational marijuana use is legal in eight states. Medical marijuana use is legal in thirteen states. Only three states maintain an absolute criminal prohibition on marijuana use. Many of these legalization initiatives propose to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol, and many titles are variations of the "Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act." For political and public health reasons the analogy makes sense, but it also reveals a regulatory blind spot. States may be using alcohol as a model for regulating the distribution, retail, and consumption of marijuana, but marijuana is much more …

Aids: Testing Democracy - Irrational Responses To The Public Health Crisis And The Need For Privacy In Serologic Testing, 19 J. Marshall L. Rev. 835 (1986), Michael L. Closen, Susan Marie Connor, Howard L. Kaufman, Mark E. Wojcik

Mark E. Wojcik

No abstract provided.

“Far From The Turbulent Space”: Considering The Adequacy Of Counsel In The Representation Of Individuals Accused Of Being Sexually Violent Predators, Michael L. Perlin, Heather Ellis Cucolo

Michael L Perlin

Abstract:

For the past thirty years, the US Supreme Court's standard of Strickland v. Washington has governed the question of adequacy of counsel in criminal trials. There, in a Sixth Amendment analysis, the Supreme Court acknowledged that simply having a lawyer assigned to a defendant was not constitutionally adequate, but that that lawyer must provide "effective assistance of counsel," effectiveness being defined, pallidly, as requiring simply that counsel's efforts be “reasonable” under the circumstances. The benchmark for judging an ineffectiveness claim is simply “whether counsel’s conduct so undermined the proper function of the adversarial process that the trial court cannot …

"Toiling In The Danger And In The Morals Of Despair": Risk, Security, Danger, The Constitution, And The Clinician's Dilemma, Michael L. Perlin, Alison Julia Lynch

Michael L Perlin

Abstract: Persons institutionalized in psychiatric hospitals and “state schools” for those with intellectual disabilities have always been hidden from view. Such facilities were often constructed far from major urban centers, availability of transportation to such institutions was often limited, and those who were locked up were, to the public, faceless and often seen as less than human.

Although there has been regular litigation in the area of psychiatric (and intellectual disability) institutional rights for 40 years, much of this case law entirely ignores forensic patients – mostly those awaiting incompetency-to-stand trial determinations, those found permanently incompetent to stand trial, those …

“Friend To The Martyr, A Friend To The Woman Of Shame”: Thinking About The Law, Shame And Humiliation, Michael L. Perlin, Naomi Weinstein

Michael L Perlin

The need to pay attention to the law‘s capacity to allow for, to encourage, or (in some cases) to remediate humiliation, or humiliating or shaming behavior has increased exponentially as we begin to also take more seriously international human rights mandates, especially – although certainly not exclusively – in the context of the recently-ratified United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a Convention that calls for “respect for inherent dignity,” and characterizes "discrimination against any person on the basis of disability [as] a violation of the inherent dignity and worth of the human person...."

Humiliation and shaming, …

"Introduction" (Chapter 1) Of Stories About Science In Law: Literary And Historical Images Of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate 2011), David S. Caudill

David S Caudill

This is the introductory chapter of Stories About Science in Law: Literary and Historical Images of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate, 2011), explaining that the book presents examples of how literary accounts can provide a supplement to our understanding of science in law. Challenging the view that law and science are completely different, I focus on stories that explore the relationship between law and science, and identify cultural images of science that prevail in legal contexts. In contrast to other studies on the transfer and construction of expertise in legal settings, the book considers the intersection of three interdisciplinary projects-- law and …

"Unnatural Deaths," Criminal Sanctions, And Medical Quality Improvement In Japan, Robert B. Leflar

Robert B Leflar

A worldwide awakening to the high incidence of preventable harm resulting from medical care, combined with pressure on hospitals and physicians from liability litigation, has turned international attention to the need for better structures to resolve medical disputes in a way that promotes medical safety and honesty toward patients. The civil justice system in the United States, in particular, is criticized as inefficient, arbitrary, and sometimes punitive. It is charged with undermining sound medical care by encouraging wasteful expenditures through defensive medicine; by driving information about medical mistakes underground where it escapes analysis, undercutting quality improvement efforts; and by forcing …

Empathy For Psychopaths: Using Fmri Brain Scans To Plea For Leniency In Death Penalty Cases, Kimberly D. Phillips

Kimberly D Phillips

Requirements Of A Valid Islamic Marriage Vis-À-Vis Requirements Of A Valid Customary Marriage In Nigeria, Olanike Sekinat Odewale Mrs

Olanike Sekinat Adelakun

Third Party Access And Refusal To Deal In European Energy Networks: How Sector Regulation And Competition Law Meet Each Other, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

In this paper, we will analyse the issue of concurrence between competition and sector rules and the relation between parallel concepts within the two different legal frameworks. We will firstly examine Third Party Access in relation to essential facilities doctrine and refusal of access and we will identify the common points and objectives of these concepts and the extent to which they provide a context to each other’s implementation. Second, we will focus on how Commission uses sector regulation and objectives as a context within the process of implementation of competition law in the energy sector and third, we will …

Fitness For Trial In The District Court: The Legal Perspective, Darius Whelan

Darius Whelan

Medical Error As Reportable Event, As Tort, As Crime: A Transpacific Comparison, Robert B. Leflar, Futoshi Iwata

Robert B Leflar

All nations seek to reduce the human toll from medical error, but variations in legal and institutional structures guide those efforts into different trajectories. This article compares legal and institutional responses to patient safety problems in the United States and Japan, addressing developments in civil malpractice law (including discoverability of internal hospital documents), administrative practice (including medical accident reporting systems), and - of particular significance in Japan - criminal law. In the U.S., battles over rules of malpractice litigation are fierce; tort law occupies center stage. The hospital accreditation process plays a critical role in medical quality control, and peer …