In the German-speaking area, recent years have seen a rapid growth of the need for forensic age estimations. Such need arises, for example, if no verified information on the age of a person suspected of a criminal offence is available; the issue at question in terms of criminal law is whether the person concerned has reached the age of criminal responsibility and whether general criminal law in...

I have argued elsewhere that respect for human rights requires a robust notion of responsibility, and that this in turn depends on folk-psychological ideas including free will, and also that such ideas need to be articulated in such a way that they can be used in combination with contemporary science in the development of the criminal law. Stephen J. Morse contends that responsibility is explai...

Much of the confusion in the current debate about embryonic stem-cell research is generated by the advocates of stem-cell research who use controversial and misleading terminology about what it involves and who evade or misrepresent the central moral argument against such research, namely, that it involves the destruction of innocent human beings. This essay points out that such failings are no...

Cheiloscopy deals with examination of system of furrows on the red part of human lips. The present study was undertaken to classify lip prints, study their variations, determine the most common pattern in the study population, evaluate differences in lip prints between males and females and between different age groups, ascertain whether there is any hereditary pattern and thereby investigate t...

The maxim “innocent until proven guilty” has assumed significance in legal scholarship, colloquial conversation, and the media; indeed, the concept resonates with American society. Its prominence in popular and legal culture reflects society’s concern for balancing the constitutional guarantee of liberty with the government’s duty to secure the well-being of its citizens. The maxim recognizes t...

The Conventions and US jurisprudence. Hawken and Kulick (2) dispute my assertion that in setting up legal nonmedical markets Washington and Colorado clearly contravene the conventions. I acknowledge my assertion was too strong, if it is read as implying that US courts would necessarily decide this way. Hawken and Kulick conclude that nations “with federal systems of government” are not bound by...

In recent years an increasing quantity of UK legislation has introduced blended or ‘hybridised’ procedures that blur the previously clear demarcation between civil and criminal legal processes, typically on the grounds of normatively-motivated political expediency. This paper provides a critical perspective on instances of procedural hybridisation in order to illustrate that, first, the relianc...

Alcohol policy and illicit drugs policy are typically presented as separate and different in academic discussion. This is understandable, to a degree, as the criminal law upholds a 'great regulatory divide' (Seddon, 2010: 56) separating the licit trade in alcohol from the illicit trade in substances classified as either class A, B or C under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. This paper takes a diff...