Law Commons^™

Evidence Of Intoxication In Australian Criminal Courts: A Complex Variable With Multiple Effects, Luke J. Mcnamara, Julia Quilter, Kate Seear, Robin Room

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This article reports on the second stage of a national study of how the effects of alcohol and other drugs are treated by criminal laws and the criminal justice system. Based on a mixed methods analysis of more than 300 appellate court decisions from all Australian jurisdictions handed down in the period 2010-2014, we identify the multiple points at which legal significance is attached to evidence that the accused, the victim or a witness was 'intoxicated' at the time of the alleged commission of a criminal offence. Focusing on the rules and principles endorsed by appellate courts in relation to …

Fulling Mills In Medieval Europe: Comparing The Manuscript And Archaeological Evidence, Adam Robert Lucas

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper provides a brief overview of some of the current knowledge concerning medieval fulling mills, drawing on archaelogical finds and manuscript evidence from medieval and early modern England, Wales, France, Germany and other parts of Continental Europe. Illustrations of fulling mills from 1500s and 1600s are compared with medieval accounts of their construction, main tenance and repair. This evidence suggests that fulling mills were simply conventional watermills with the same waterfeed and drive mechanisms as grain mills, but which substituted right-angled gearing and millstones with cam-operated trip-hammers, walk stocks or stamps and fulling troughs. Although there were at least …

Why Do Some Controversies Persist Despite The Evidence?, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The debate over climate change is relatively young while nuclear power and pesticides have been heated topics since the 1960s, and fluoridation since the 1950s. So what is it about these scientific controversies that makes them seem to go on forever?

Some campaigners despair, assuming that those on the other side simply refuse to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence: “They must be ignorant. Or devious – they’re lying. Or they’re getting paid.”

Ignorance or psychological resistance might be relevant in some cases, but there are better explanations for why controversies persist.

Sociologists have been studying scientific and technological controversies for many …