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Death Penalty Exceptionalism and Administrative Law
Get PDFIn the world of capital punishment, the oft-repeated refrain “death is different” stands for the notion that when the state exercises its most awesome power—the power to take human life—every procedural protection should be provided. Every safeguard should be met. Granted, doing so makes the death penalty cumbersome. And granted, it slows what Justice Blackmun famously called “the machinery of death.” But when the stakes are literally life and death, the idea is that we ought to make sure that whatever the state does, it does right.
Scholars have lamented the way that this idea of death penalty exceptionalism has played out in the capital punishment context, but in the administrative law context, “death is different” takes on a new meaning altogether. In the administrative law context, “death is different” means suspension of the rules that ordinarily apply to administrative decisionmaking. It means that when the state is carrying out its most solemn of duties, those subject to its reach receive not more protection, but less. [..
[Introduction to] The Essential John Stuart Mill.
No full textThe oldest of nine children, John Stuart Mill was born on May 20, 1806; he died in France, where he spent many of his later years, on May 7, 1873.
Mill had a very extraordinary, strenuous education, overseen by his ambitious father James, who believed that one becomes improved via education and, once educated, that is the end of the matter. John Mill was reading Greek at age three and Latin at the age of eight. He was at heart always reform-minded, however, and his more mature views allowed that people might come to realize how best to reform, remake, and improve themselves. In fact, reform-mindedness is a major theme in Mill’s life. Among the many liberal causes associated with him are the defense of the abolition of slavery, repeal of the Corn Laws, extension of the franchise and property rights to women, reform of Irish property arrangements, and the question of birth control.
In the summer of 1830, Mill met and fell headlong in love with the already married Harriet Taylor and began an intense and prolonged relationship with her. The repercussions of his friendship with and eventual marriage to Harriet were profound—and costly—and included isolation from family and friends. The experience formed the backdrop to his strong denunciation in On Liberty of the oppression associated with public opinion.
Harriet’s influence on Mill’s work was significant. Beginning in 1846 in a newspaper article and then recurring frequently thereafter, Mill attributed much of his work as a “joint production” with Taylor. In 1861, Mill completed one of his and Harriet’s most influential works, The Subjection of Women, on which he had collaborated closely with Harriet until her sudden death in 1858. Published in 1869, it was filled with many ideas ahead of their time.
In 1865, well after Harriet’s death, Mill became a member of Parliament. By that point, he had gained a great deal of fame as a logician, philosopher, and political economist. Mill’s time in Parliament was relatively brief but his influence did not dwindle in retirement. He spent many of his remaining years in France, living in Avignon until his death in 1873.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1387/thumbnail.jp
[Introduction to] Travel, Geography, and Empire in Latin Poetry.
No full textThis volume considers representations of space and movement in sources ranging from Roman comedy to late antique verse, exploring how poetry in the Roman world is fundamentally shaped by its relationship to travel within the geography of Rome’s far-reaching empire.
The volume surveys Roman poetics of travel and geography in sources ranging from Plautus to Augustan poetry, from the Flavians to Ausonius. The chapters offer a range of approaches to: the complex relationship between Latin poetry, Roman identity, imperialism, and travel and geospatial narratives; and the diachronic and generic evolutions of poetic descriptions of space and mobility. In addition, two chapters, including the concluding one, contextualize and respond to the volume’s discussion of poetry by looking at ways in which Romans not only write and read poems about travel and geography, but also make writing and reading part of the experience of traveling, as demonstrated in their epigraphic practices. The collection as a whole offers important insights into Roman poetics and into ancient notions of movement and geographical space.
Travel, Geography, and Empire in Latin Poetry will be of interest to specialists in Latin poetry, ancient travel, and Latin epigraphy as well as to those studying travel writing, geography, imperialism, and mobility in other periods. The chapters are written to be accessible to researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1385/thumbnail.jp
Automatic Fact-Checking with Document-level Annotations using BERT and Multiple Instance Learning.
No full textAutomatic fact-checking is crucial for recognizing misinformation spreading on the internet. Most existing fact-checkers break down the process into several subtasks, one of which determines candidate evidence sentences that can potentially support or refute the claim to be verified; typically, evidence sentences with gold-standard labels are needed for this. In a more realistic setting, however, such sentence-level annotations are not available. In this paper, we tackle the natural language inference (NLI) subtask—given a document and a (sentence) claim, determine whether the document supports or refutes the claim—only using document-level annotations. Using fine-tuned BERT and multiple instance learning, we achieve 81.9% accuracy, significantly outperforming the existing results on the WikiFactCheck-English dataset
An Evolutionary Explanation for the Female Leadership Paradox.
No full textSocial influence is distributed unequally between males and females in many mammalian societies. In human societies, gender inequality is particularly evident in access to leadership positions. Understanding why women historically and cross-culturally have tended to be under-represented as leaders within human groups and organizations represents a paradox because we lack evidence that women leaders consistently perform worse than men. We also know that women exercise overt influence in collective group-decisions within small-scale human societies, and that female leadership is pervasive in particular contexts across non-human mammalian societies. Here, we offer a transdisciplinary perspective on this female leadership paradox. Synthesis of social science and biological literatures suggests that females and males, on average, differ in why and how they compete for access to political leadership in mixed-gender groups. These differences are influenced by sexual selection and are moderated by socioecological variation across development and, particularly in human societies, by culturally transmitted norms and institutions. The interplay of these forces contributes to the emergence of female leaders within and across species. Furthermore, females may regularly exercise influence on group decisions in less conspicuous ways and different domains than males, and these underappreciated forms of leadership require more study. We offer a comprehensive framework for studying inequality between females and males in access to leadership positions, and we discuss the implications of this approach for understanding the female leadership paradox and for redressing gender inequality in leadership in humans
Predicting the Impact of Placing an Overdose Prevention Site in Philadelphia: A Mathematical Modeling Approach.
No full textBackground
Fatal overdoses from opioid use and substance disorders are increasing at an alarming rate. One proposed harm reduction strategy for reducing overdose fatalities is to place overdose prevention sites—commonly known as safe injection facilities—in proximity of locations with the highest rates of overdose. As urban centers in the USA are tackling legal hurdles and community skepticism around the introduction and location of these sites, it becomes increasingly important to assess the magnitude of the effect that these services might have on public health. Methods
We developed a mathematical model to describe the movement of people who used opioids to an overdose prevention site in order to understand the impact that the facility would have on overdoses, fatalities, and user education and treatment/recovery. The discrete-time, stochastic model is able to describe a range of user behaviors, including the effects from how far they need to travel to the site. We calibrated the model to overdose data from Philadelphia and ran simulations to describe the effect of placing a site in the Kensington neighborhood. Results
In Philadelphia, which has a non-uniform racial population distribution, choice of site placement can determine which demographic groups are most helped. In our simulations, placement of the site in the Kensington neighborhood resulted in White opioid users being more likely to benefit from the site’s services. Overdoses that occur onsite can be reversed. Our results predict that for every 30 stations in the overdose prevention site, 6 per year of these would have resulted in fatalities if they had occurred outside of the overdose prevention site. Additionally, we estimate that fatalities will decrease further when referrals from the OPS to treatment are considered. Conclusions
Mathematical modeling was used to predict the impact of placing an overdose prevention site in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. To fully understand the impact of site placement, both direct and indirect effects must be included in the analysis. Introducing more than one site and distributing sites equally across neighborhoods with different racial and demographic characteristics would have the broadest public health impact. Cities and locales can use mathematical modeling to help quantify the predicted impact of placing an overdose prevention site in a particular location
Deepfakes, Online Platforms, and a Novel Proposal for Transparency, Collaboration, and Education
Get PDFDeepfakes are manipulated media, often synthesized with machine learning, that create realistic digital impersonations, avatars, or derivative images based on pre-existing source material. Deepfakes are a source of technological innovations that can positively change our culture. However, “malicious” deepfakes pose serious threats to individuals and society at large, given their inherently upfront harm, rapid dissemination, and constant evolution that escapes an easy definition. Among privacy, technology, and legal experts, crafting policy to address malicious deepfakes has become a contentious hotspot. This Article outlines the current gap in effective policy addressing malicious deepfakes. First, existing legal remedies are ineffective at addressing deepfake harms. Second, proposed deepfake legislation does not fare much better, by being too broad, too narrow, or utilizing impractical requirements. Third, some scholars have correctly suggested that online platforms be held responsible for deepfake regulation. However, many of these attempts, including a “reasonable steps standard,” focus on stripping online platforms of important protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Ultimately, this Article sets forth a novel tripartite proposal to better address malicious deepfake harm while protecting technological innovation and expression. First, online platforms should provide extensive transparency disclosures to inform their users and the public more generally about their practices regarding deepfakes and manipulated media. Second, the government should collaborate with the private sector to address deepfakes. Third, both online platforms and the government should invest in public education resources about deepfakes and media literacy. This proposal best addresses the unique characteristics of malicious deepfakes, preserves technological innovation, and balances the competing values underlying powerful deepfake technology
Humans Against the Machines: Still Reaffirming the Superiority of Human Attorneys in Legal Document Review
Get PDFIn September 2020, the Richmond Journal of Law & Technology published an article by the undersigned authors, in which the authors examined the limitations and risks of relying solely on predictive coding in the discovery process and demonstrated, with empirical data, that human attorney review significantly increases the quality of a document production. In response to this publication, Maura R. Grossman and Gordon V. Cormack have submitted a comment, in which they claim the article contains a “material error” that “calls into question its results and conclusions.” This claim is simply not true, on either count
RVA Works: Empowering Entrepreneurs for Big Change
No full textRVA Works (a shortening of Richmond, Virginia Works) is a public charity, which has demonstrated superior efficacy in educational programming for entrepreneurship. Since 2014, their work has primarily focused on providing pathways to business ownership for ethnic minorities, women, and lower-income people. Through a network of sponsors and volunteers, they have provided a weekly entrepreneur presentation series, mentorship, a cohort-based training curriculum, pro bono professional services, and other referrals. This work has raised entrepreneurs’ household income levels, created new jobs, and provided strong community role models. This case allows students to evaluate challenges faced by micro-enterprise owners across America and understand the frameworks for boosting community entrepreneurship. Students will also be able to assess RVA Works’ strategic growth goals, particularly considering the adoption of technology into the organization’s business model. The case ultimately gives students tools to help them decide on what action RVA Works can take to maximize the extent of their social impact in balance, within the financial constraints of an operating charity