text:
Indiana Board lacked jurisdiction to rule on property’s assessments for years not under appeal. LHC Partners, LLC v. Montgomery County Assessor, Pet. No. 54-009-08-1-5-00043 (Dec. 3, 2012) (March 1, 2008 assessment). “To the extent that the Petitioner’s witness suggests that the Board should reduce the Petitioner’s property’s 2009, 2010, 2011 or 2012 assessed values, those assessment years are not before the Board in this appeal. And the Board has no jurisdiction to change an assessment that is not on appeal before it.” (Page 11, ¶ 30 n.8) (citing Whetzel v. Department of Local Government Finance, 761 N.E.2d 904, 908 (Ind. Tax Ct. 2001)).
Indiana Board has no jurisdiction to hear complaints regarding city services. Potter v. Tippecanoe County Assessor, Petition Nos. 79-032-10-1-5-00001 et al. (Dec. 21, 2012) (March 1, 2010 assessment). The Board explained, “Ultimately, the Petitioner’s issue is with the subdivision’s location on a ‘private drive’ and the lack of city services the properties receive as a result of that designation.” (Page 8, ¶ 15(h).) The Board lacks jurisdiction over the provision of city services to Owner’s duplexes. Id.
Not a Dull moment. Indiana Board sua sponte rules that it lacked jurisdiction to hear appeal challenging statutes addressing budget levy and local option income taxes. Dull v. Lake County Assessor, Pet. No. 45-044-10-3-5-00176 (Jan. 23, 2013) (March 1, 2010 assessment). Property owners challenged the constitutionality of two statutes (Indiana Code § 6-1.1-18.5-2(c), Indiana Code § 6-3.5-6-32(j)) freezing Lake County’s tax levy unless a local option income tax is passed and removing the ability to pass such a tax by the Lake County Income Tax Council. With this freeze in place, the Owners asserted, Lake County cannot provide the same level of services as it did in 2007 – an impact felt by every local governmental unit and the county. They argued the statutes violate various federal and state constitutional provisions, including that the statutes constitute impermissible special legislation. Owners did not contest the assessed value of the property under review. The Indiana Board declined to reach the merits and sua sponte concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over Lake County’s budget or local income tax issues. (Page 9, ¶ 18.) The Board reasoned that “while arguably the county’s maximum budget levy has some impact on the property taxes the [Owners] paid in 2010, the Board has no jurisdiction over property taxes or tax rates.” Id.
Taxpayers may not challenge their tax rates or bills before the Board. Irvin v. Perry County Assessor, Pet. No. 62-003-10-1-5-00013 (Jan. 31, 2013) (March 1, 2010 assessment) [Small Claims Docket]. “The Board can address appeals from determinations made by local assessing officials or county PTABOAs [i.e. the local review board] that concern property valuations, property tax deductions, property tax exemptions, or property tax credits. No statute authorizes the Board to review tax rates or tax bills. Therefore, to the extent that the Petitioner may have attempted to contest his tax liability, the Board lacks jurisdiction.” (Page 5, ¶ 15(a)) (citing Ind. Code § 6-1.5-4-1(a)).
Non-attorney, non-certified tax representative son allowed to represent taxpayer-mother; Form 131 timely where PTABOA failed to mail Form 115 notice to son’s address. Castleman v. Steuben County Assessor, Pet. No. 76-006-10-1-5-00023 (Jan. 11, 2013) (March 1, 2010 assessment). Taxpayer’s son represented her at the Indiana Board’s hearing. The son was not an attorney or a certified tax representative. Because the mother appeared at the hearing, she could call the son as her witness. (Page 1, ¶ 4 n.1.) Assessor did not object to the son offering exhibits and making arguments. The Board concluded that the mother “appears to have ratified [son’s] actions by her silence.” Id.
Failure to timely initiate appeal was a “fatal mistake” making the Board’s review process “unavailable” where PTABOA refused to hear appeal. Huismann v. Dearborn County Assessor, Petition No. 15-007-11-1-5-00579 (Feb. 13, 2013) (March 1, 2011 assessment) [Small Claims Docket]. The Form 11 assessment notice assessing Homeowners’ property was dated September 14, 2011. They had 45-days from that point – until October 29th (or, as noted above, until October 31st because of the 45th day falling on a Saturday) – to file an appeal. Homeowners’ admitted they “missed the date” by filing their appeal on November 14, 2011. (Page 4, ¶ 14.) The approximate two-week delay was a “fatal mistake.” (Page 4, ¶ 15.) Because the initial appeal was untimely, review of the PTABOA’s decision not to consider modifying the assessment was “unavailable.” Id.
Indiana Board lacked authority to hear Form 132 petitions filed more than 45 days after receipt of tax bill. In GCH, LLC v. St. Joseph County Assessor, Pet. No. 71-018-09-2-8-00004 (March 19, 2012) (March 1, 2008 and 2009 assessment dates), the Indiana Board of Tax Review considered the application of a property exemption in a case with a “convoluted history.” (Page 1, ¶ 1.) The property was transferred to the owner GCH, LLC (GCH) sometime after August 2008. During the relevant periods at issue, the property was leased to the United States Social Security Administration. It had received the exemption for several years. Only upon receipt of the November 2009 tax bill did GCH receive notice that the exemption had been removed. On March 17, 2010, GCH filed a Form 132 appeal petition with the Assessor. In November 2010, GCH mailed a Form 132 petition to the Indiana Board. GCH’s filings, the Board noted, “have caused much confusion,” and “other things have contributed to the procedural morass” facing the Board. (Page 6, ¶¶ 18 & 19.) Those “other things” included: (1) the property’s exemption had been removed without notice to the taxpayer; (2) the property tax appeal statutes “do not spell out how a taxpayer should challenge such an action”; (3) GCH initially filed Form 132 petitions in different places and did not fill in the assessment date at issue on one petition; and (4) GCH ignored the Board’s notice of defects regarding the Form 132 petitions.
Trial court’s injunctions from the 1970s didn’t bind Assessor, PTABOA or Indiana Board. Local Union 414 International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. Allen County Assessor, Pet. No. 02-074-08-2-8-00014 (Dec. 3, 2012) (March 1, 2008). In the appeal of the denial of a property tax exemption for a union’s office and meeting facility, the union asserted that decisions rendered by Marion County courts decades ago found labor unions to be tax exempt. These decisions applied to all Indiana assessors, the union argued. (Page 9, ¶ 17(D).) The union asked the Indiana Board to take judicial notice of several injunctions issued by the Marion County Superior Court in the 1970s. (Page 18, ¶ 32.) The Board observed: “Because the Indiana Tax Court has exclusive jurisdiction over any case that arises under the tax laws of Indiana, it is not clear how decisions from a court with no jurisdiction over property tax matters could be binding on the [Assessor], the Allen County PTABOA or the Indiana Board of Tax Review.” Id. In a footnote, the Board cited to a 2008 Indiana Court of Appeals decision noting that the Tax Court has exclusive jurisdiction over tax appeals and finding that the Marion County Superior Court lacked jurisdiction to order a property tax refund. (Page 18, ¶ 32 n.5) (citing Marion County Auditor v. Revival Temple of Apostolic Church, 898 N.E.2d 437 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008)).
House used for charitable and religious purposes found taxable; exemption waived where application filed too late. Servants of the Streets FWTC, Inc. v. Elkhart County Assessor, Pet. No. 20-009-10-2-8-00001 (Feb. 26, 2013) (March 1, 2010 assessment). The filing date for a Form 136 property tax exemption application is May 15th. For the March 1, 2010 assessment date, Servants of the Streets filed its application on June 4, 2010, and it presented no evidence that the property had been previously exempted (property that has previously been exempted for charitable or religious purposes may not have to re-file an exemption application if the property’s physical status and use have not materially changed). Servants of the Streets asked the Indiana Board to “find a way to waive the filing deadline.” (Page 7, ¶ 23.) There was no dispute that the property was used for charitable and religious purposes, but the Board was compelled to find that Servants of the Streets had waived its right to an exemption. (Page 7, ¶ 24.) The house was 100% taxable. Id.

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38-2314. Docket fee; authorized only by legislative enactment; expenses; assessment. (a) Docket fee. The docket fee for proceedings under this code, if one is assessed as provided by this section, shall be $34. Only one docket fee shall be assessed in each case. Except as provided further, the docket fee established in this section shall be the only fee collected or moneys in the nature of a fee collected for the docket fee. Such fee shall only be established by an act of the legislature and no other authority is established by law or otherwise to collect a fee. On and after July 1, 2017, through June 30, 2019, the supreme court may impose an additional charge, not to exceed $22 per docket fee, to fund the costs of non-judicial personnel.
History: L. 2006, ch. 169, § 14; L. 2008, ch. 95, § 10; L. 2009, ch. 116, § 18; L. 2010, ch. 62, § 12; L. 2011, ch. 87, § 12; L. 2012, ch. 66, § 14; L. 2013, ch. 125, § 14; L. 2015, ch. 81, § 20; L. 2017, ch. 80, § 16; July 1.


D.C. Law Library - § 7–1131.13. Prosecution and representation by Attorney General for the District of Columbia.
↪ § 7–1131.13. Prosecution and representation by Attorney General for the District of Columbia.
§ 7–1131.13. Prosecution and representation by Attorney General for the District of Columbia.
The Office of Corporation Counsel shall have charge of the prosecution of actions brought in the name of the District of Columbia for emergency detention and commitment of persons requiring receipt of involuntary mental health services and mental health supports. The Office of the Corporation Counsel shall also have charge of any litigation arising out of the execution of the Department’s powers and duties.
For temporary (90 day) addition of section, see § 13 of Department of Mental Health Establishment Emergency Amendment Act of 2001 (D.C. Act 14-55, May 2, 2001, 48 DCR 4390).
For temporary (90 day) addition of section, see § 13 of Department of Mental Health Establishment Congressional Review Emergency Amendment Act of 2001 (D.C. Act 14-101, July 23, 2001, 48 DCR 7123).
For temporary (90 day) addition of section, see § 113 of Mental Health Service Delivery Reform Congressional Review Emergency Act of 2001 (D.C. Act 14-144, October 23, 2001, 48 DCR 9947).
For temporary (225 day) addition of section, see § 13 of Department of Mental Health Establishment Temporary Amendment Act of 2001 (D.C. Law 14-51, October 30, 2001, law notification 48 DCR 10807).


Initially, we note that the standard for what constitutes proper enablement of a prior art reference for purposes of anticipation under section 102 differs from the enablement standard under section 112. In In re Hafner, 410 F.2d 1403, 1405 (CCPA 1969). A disclosure lacking a teaching of how to use a fully disclosed invention for a specific, substantial utility is, under the present state of the law, entirely adequate to anticipate a claim. See Rasmusson v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 413 F.3d 1318, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 2005).
Ex parte Obiaya, 227 USPQ 58, 60 (BPAI 1985) (“The fact that appellant has recognized another advantage which would flow naturally from following the suggestion of the prior art cannot be the basis for patentability when the differences would otherwise be obvious.”); In re Gershon, 372 F.2d 535, 539 (CCPA 1967) (“We think it is sufficient that the prior art clearly suggests doing what appellants have done, although an underlying explanation of exactly why this should be done, other than to obtain the expected superior beneficial results, is not taught or suggested in the cited references.”); In re Kubin, 561 F.3d 1351, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (“Even if no prior art of record explicitly discusses the [limitation], [applicant’s] application itself instructs that [the limitation] is not an additional requirement imposed by the claims on the [claimed invention], but rather a property necessarily present in [the claimed invention]”).
The Examiner relies on In re Harza, 274 F.2d 669 (CCPA 1960) to provide reason why one of ordinary skill in the art would have modified Bortugno’s system to duplicate parts. (Id.). The Examiner does not analogize the facts in Harza to the facts in this appeal.
The Appellant contends the “reasoning for duplication of parts does not apply.” (App. Br. 7). In Harza, the court held that “[i]t is well settled that the mere duplication of parts has no patentable significance.” Harza , 274 F.2d at 671 (italics added). The Appellant points out that the three gutter sections recited in claims 7 and 8 “are different and not duplicates.” (Id.).
These modifications are far beyond the holding in Harza, which is limited to a mere duplication of parts.
Limitations appearing in the specification but not recited in the claim are not read into the claim. E-Pass Techs., Inc. v. 3Com Corp., 343 F.3d 1364, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (citation omitted) (claims must be interpreted “in view of the specification” without importing limitations from the specification into the claims unnecessarily) (“The problem is to interpret claims ‘in view of the specification’ without unnecessarily importing limitations from the specification into the claims.”). We decline to read the three criteria argued by the Appellant into the claims.
See Ex parte Curry, 84 USPQ2d 1272, 1275 (BPAI 2005) (informative) (“Common situations involving nonfunctional descriptive material are: - a computer-readable storage medium that differs from the prior art solely with respect to nonfunctional descriptive material, such as music or a literary work, encoded on the medium, - a computer that differs from the prior art solely with respect to nonfunctional descriptive material that cannot alter how the machine functions (i.e., the descriptive material does not reconfigure the computer), or - a process that differs from the prior art only with respect to nonfunctional descriptive material that cannot alter how the process steps are to be performed to achieve the utility of the invention. Thus, if the prior art suggests storing a song on a disk, merely choosing a particular song to store on the disk would be presumed to be well within the level of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made. The difference between the prior art and the claimed invention is simply a rearrangement of nonfunctional descriptive material.).” See also Ex parte Mathias, 84 USPQ2d 1276 (BPAI 2005) (informative).
The primary purpose of the definiteness requirement is to ensure that the claims are written in such a way that they give notice to the public of the extent of the legal protection afforded by the patent, so that interested members of the public, e.g., competitors of the patent owner, can determine whether or not they infringe. All Dental Prodx, LLC v. Advantage Dental Prods., Inc., 309 F.3d 774, 779-80 (Fed. Cir. 2002). If the language of a claim is such that a person of ordinary skill in the art could not interpret the metes and bounds of the claim so as to understand how to avoid infringement, a rejection of the claim under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, is appropriate. Orthokinetics, Inc. v. Safety Travel Chairs, Inc., 806 F.2d 1565, 1576 (Fed. Cir. 1986); Datamize, LLC v. Plumtree Software, Inc., 417 F.3d 1342, 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (“Some objective standard must be provided in order to allow the public to determine the scope of the claimed invention.”). In addition, if the claims are inherently inconsistent with the description, definitions, and examples appearing in the specification, a rejection of the claim under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, is likewise appropriate. In re Cohn, 438 F.2d 989, 993 (CCPA 1971).
Nevertheless, as correctly pointed out by Appellant on page 16 of the Appeal Brief, merely that a claim is broad does not mean that it is necessarily indefinite. See In re Johnson, 558 F.2d 1008, 1016 n.17 (CCPA 1977); In re Miller, 441 F.2d 689, 693 (CCPA 1971); In re Gardner, 427 F.2d 786, 788 (CCPA 1970).
To establish an actual reduction of practice, the patent owner has the burden of demonstrating that the method reduced to practice includes all the elements of the claimed method (Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) §§ 715.07 & 2185.05, Eighth Edition (August 2001), revised July 2010). See also In re Borkowski, 505 F.2d 713, 718-19 (CCPA 1974).
Whether the inventor has provided adequate written description, either explicitly or inherently, must be determined from the disclosure considered as a whole. Reiffin v. Microsoft Corp., 214 F.3d 1342, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2000). When the original written description describes something within the scope of the claim, the Examiner must do more than point out the difference in scope. This is so because “that a claim may be broader than the specific embodiment disclosed in a specification is in itself of no moment.” In re Rasmussen, 650 F.2d 1212, 1215 (CCPA 1981). There are instances in which a narrower disclosure can support broader claims. Id.
2175 Ex Parte McKeon et al 10/868,248 LUCAS 103(a) SHOOK, HARDY & BACON L.L.P.
If the words of limitation can connote with equal force a structural characteristic of the product or a process used to obtain it, then the limitation is commonly interpreted in its structural sense. See, e.g., 3M Innovative Props. Co. v. Avery Dennison Corp., 350 F.3d 1365, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (“[E]ven words of limitation that can connote with equal force a structural characteristic of the product or a process of manufacture are commonly and by default interpreted in their structural sense….”); Hazani v. U.S. Int’l. Trade Com’n., 126 F.3d 1473, 1479 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (holding that claims to a plate having a “chemically engraved” surface are best characterized as pure product claims, since the “chemically engraved” limitation, read in context, describes the product more by its structure than by the process used to obtain it); see also In re Garnero, 412 F.2d 276, 278-79 (CCPA 1969) (noting that past-tense verbs such as “ ‘intermixed,’ ‘ground in place,’ ‘press fitted,’ ‘etched,’ and ‘welded,’ all … at one time or another have been separately held capable of construction as structural, rather than process, limitations.”).
“Abstract software code is an idea without physical embodiment.” Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp., 550 U.S. 437, 449 (2007).
We are also not persuaded that common ownership is a requirement for an obviousness-type double patenting rejection. As stated in MPEP § 804 ¶ I.A., “[d]ouble patenting may exist between an issued patent and an application filed by the same inventive entity, or by a different inventive entity having a common inventor, and/or by a common assignee/owner” (emphasis added).
This policy is supported by the decision in In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937 (CCPA 1982), in which the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals affirmed an obviousness-type double patenting rejection over a patent with a common inventor, despite a lack of common ownership. The court reasoned there that the concern over potential harassment of an infringer by multiple assignees asserting essentially the same patented invention outweighed the applicant‟s inability to proffer a terminal disclaimer tying together ownership of the application and conflicting patent. Id. at 944-48.
The harassment justification for obviousness-type double patenting is particularly pertinent here because the Fallaux application and the Vogels patents are not commonly owned. If the Fallaux application and the Vogels patents were commonly owned, the terminal disclaimer filed in this case would have been effective to overcome the double patenting rejection. We note that this defect was of the applicant‟s creation as through assignment it allowed ownership of the applications to be divided among different entities.
Id. at 1319 (footnote omitted).


text:
PINNACLE GROUP: Seeks 2nd Cir. OK to Challenge Class Cert.
ASBESTOS UPDATE: Belville Case v. 83 Firms Filed June 7 in W.Va.
ASBESTOS UPDATE: Scudder Case v. CSX Filed June 8 in Kanawha Co.
ASBESTOS UPDATE: Osborne Case v. CSX Filed June 8 in Kanawha Co.
ASBESTOS UPDATE: Davis Claim v. CSX Filed June 8 in Kanawha Co.
ASBESTOS UPDATE: Chancey Claim v. 48 Firms Filed May 14 in W.Va.
ASBESTOS UPDATE: Johnson Claim v. 47 Firms Filed May 17 in W.Va.
patronage capital has not yet been refunded, citing S.C. Code Ann.
according to figures revealed in the Federal Court on June 21.
$234 million plus interest, from Visy.
cartel between May 2000 and May 2005.
the University of California Berkeley, Daniel Rubinfeld.
estimate of its exposure at the time.
figures were no longer confidential.
run if Justice Jacobson finds that they did collude to overcharge.
because they passed the increases on to their own customers.
federal class action challenging the state's new immigration law.
members will racially profiled when the law is enforced.
they will or have suffered racial profiling or "disproportionate"
being stopped by the police under SB 1070."
Gov. Brewer insists the plaintiffs have only a "subjective chill"
based on their expressions of speech."
Gov. Brewer is represented by John J. Bouma with Snell & Wilmer.
Babeu also filed a motion to dismiss.
market's better performers last year, rising more than 150%.
class action against the banks sees the light of day.
financial year alone, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia.
against 12 banks to recover allegedly unjust penalty fees.
Exchange Commission for the quarter ended May 1, 2010.
damages, attorneys' fees and costs.
was denied on Aug. 24, 2007.
The trial began on May 7, 2008, and concluded on May 15, 2008.
claims of the opt-in plaintiffs.
respective cases before the District Court in Louisiana.
the January 2009 action) were dismissed with prejudice.
individual actions in the District Court in Louisiana.
hear these cases. This writ was denied on Oct. 20, 2009.
quarter ended May 1, 2010.
managers working in the Company's New York stores.
and Exchange Commission for the quarter ended May 1, 2010.
time, and attorneys' fees and costs.
the quarter ended May 1, 2010.
against the company by a California resident ("Caron matters").
meal and rest periods and other wage and hour claims.
loss of unused vacation time, and attorneys' fees and costs.
Court, Central District of California.
settlement in the Espinosa matter.
company's motion to deny class certification.
Accordingly, the claims of one plaintiff remain before the Court.
consolidated amended complaint remains pending in the U.S.
the company's June 9, 2010, Form 10-K filing with the U.S.
issues made between May 29, 2008 and June 25, 2009.
appointing the lead plaintiff and lead counsel for plaintiff.
complaint, which also names Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited.
is still being briefed to the Court by the parties.
throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.
according to a May 24 motion.
action before her was filed in 2004.
Paul Marks, Esq., represents Morgan and the class in both cases.
The Morgan case before Judge Hylla is case number 03-L-980.
consumers from assessing the amount and nature of individual fees.
not return calls for comment.
"Coupons" section of your account and expires July 31, 2011.
Linda Sherry, a spokeswoman for advocacy group Consumer Action.
there are more valuable coupon codes to be used in conjunction.
written exclusive referral agreements in return.
nonexempt, unpaid overtime, meal and rest breaks, and uniforms.
court conditionally certified a nationwide collective action.
for the quarter ended May 1, 2010.
protected books in its Google Book Search product.
comment on whether the matter is even close to being resolved.
since the final hearing wrapped up in New York in February.
plans to create the world's largest digital library in 2003.
despite the October 2008 settlement agreement.
still might raise antitrust issues.
success of Amazon's Kindle and the early interest in Apple's iPad.
highest court in the U.S. can be tricky.
downplay profits Goldman made from shorting the housing market.
investigation into Goldman's activities since mid-2008.
The Hartford Financial Services Group, according to the report.
A spokesman for the insurer told the Courant it is "confident"
uncertainties and costs of continued litigation."
according to the plaintiff's law firm.
business combination between the Company and Endo Pharmaceuticals.
completion of the tender offer and merger.
to vigorously defend against these lawsuits.
minimize the cost and expense of litigating these lawsuits.
SECURITIES BETWEEN JULY 5, 2007 AND AUGUST 25, 2008, INCLUSIVE.
address, postmarked no later than September 10, 2010.
and Exchange Commission for the quarter ended May 2, 2010.
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The complaints have been consolidated into one class action.
dismiss on April 6, 2007.
denied the motion to dismiss the Section 20(a) claim against them.
locations and approximately 1000 employees.
defendants, and more than seven million potential class members.
class members -- submitted objections to the proposed settlement.
purported wage and hour class-action suit, Patti Blair et al. v.
at times worked off the clock without compensation.
filed by the purported class members.
company's April 29, 2010, Form 10-Q filing with the U.S.
Pharmaceutical Co., et al., No. 4-09-cv-198-CEJ.
No. 4:09-cv-00297-JCH, filed on Feb. 24, 2009.
Amended Complaint on June 26, 2009.
fiduciary duties to participants in the company's 401(k) plan.
and briefing of those motions was completed on Oct. 19, 2009.
individual defendants on March 24, 2010.
consolidated complaint was filed on April 21, 2010.
Ther-Rx Corporation, its branded drug subsidiary.
of Missouri styled Mas v. KV Pharma. Co., et al., Case No.
Case No. 09-cv-0061, also in the Eastern District of Missouri.
Pharma. Co., et al., Case No. 09-cv-00138.
Public Pension Fund Group v. KV Pharma. Co., et al., Case No.
4:08-cv-1859 (CEJ), was filed on May 22, 2009.
individual defendants in February 2010.
filed a notice of appeal.
from judgment and to amend the complaint on April 8, 2010.
Briefing was completed on April 29, 2010.
to the company's June 10, 2010, Form 10-Q filing with the U.S.
and state courts in various jurisdictions.
substantial compensatory and punitive damages.
where, in its judgment, settlement is appropriate.
Charles T. Lester, Jr., Esq.
ERIC C. DETERS & ASSOCIATES, P.S.C.
intended to help determine issues in related lawsuits nationwide.
settlement conference June 18 in the New Orleans chambers of U.S.
face claims, Judge Fallon said last month.
multidistrict litigation on June 24.
contaminated with defective Chinese drywall.
referred to by the participants as "crystal meetings,"
historic criminal fine of $400 million.
the LDSS offices at the Plaza Tower.
costs taxed against the State for the suit.
attorney fee of 36% of the $93,126.44 damage award pursuant to La.
was affirmed on appeal and is the final judgment.
the remaining class members and to discuss possible mediation.
these individuals can pursue their claims."
Exchange Commission for the quarter ended May 2, 2010.
redeemable only for lululemon merchandise.
at the time of termination.
The plaintiffs are seeking an unspecified amount of damages.
versatile discs, water bottles and headbands.
inc. and the plaintiff in the matter Brett Kohlenberg et al v.
Commission for the quarter ended May 2, 2010.
the process of obtaining final approval.
A copy of the Complaint in The Singing Machine Company, Inc. v.
MGA Entertainment Inc., et al., Case No. 10-cv-04536 (C.D.
prevent highway accidents and deaths.
meet with three provincial cabinet ministers Tuesday.
reported annually across Newfoundland and Labrador.
the number of moose hunting licenses it issues this coming fall.
Crown-owned operations between 1968 and 2000.
steelmaking, are among the most contaminated sites in Canada.
They are believed to contain 700,000 tonnes of toxic sludge.
"What the community wants is: they want their day in court," Mr.
they do not trust the government."
those if they choose, on their own," said Mr. Wagner.
Mr. Wagner said the cleanup request was the focus of the lawsuit.
about what's in their home and in their backyards."
to toxic substances suffered by people living in the area.
"We're simply saying that's too big a piece to take on," Mr.
really need to try individual cases."
Sydney and that would be very expensive."
expected to be completed by 2014.
the claimants under one umbrella for a single trial.
Board in Orleans Parish Civil District Court.
amended Louisiana Revised Statute 17:1202.
above the amount each person is owed.
RITTENBERG, SAMUEL & PHILLIPS, L.L.C.
that the Prempro menopause drug helped cause her breast cancer.
for trial, plaintiffs' lawyers said.
ready to go back later this year.
back all the suits at one time.
cases will go to trial, he said.
number of cases pending, nor do we comment on our legal strategy."
The case is In Re Prempro Products, 03-cv-15070 (E.D. Ark.).
Premarin and Prempro carried an increased risk of breast cancer.
that motion could come any day.
office briefed a tenant group about it.
people are going to come forward."
phone is non-stop ringing. They are backlogged for months."
"nuisances" and pay back rent.
also asked for certification of Pinnacle tenants as a class.
plaintiffs have already settled and left the case.
model for actions against other landlords.
tenants, but for other citizens who try to sue under RICO.
different crimes in furtherance of the same criminal enterprise.
collect three times as much as the illegal acts cost them.
housing court or in administrative proceedings).
for years -- is also showing concern for its public image.
make regular reports on its rent law compliance for a year.
set aside apartments for Section 8 renters.
that Pinnacle hasn't made mistakes."
Community Renewal, which oversees rent regulated apartments.
an overcharge or a decrease in services."
safe and well-managed housing to thousands of New York families."
this lawsuit is completely overblown."
dollars have declared personal bankruptcy, court heard Monday.
action application is granted and the case can proceed. Mr.
eyes open, that they're were not watchdogs."
The hearing was to resume Monday afternoon.
well as two nearly identical cases led by Steve and Beth Dudley.
Uniform Standards Act. The case was then dismissed.
against the dismissal of those suits in May.
to be allowed to amend the suits to keep them alive.
Judge Crowder took the moves under advisement.
mutual funds class action. That settlement, overseen by U.S.
Final approval of the Maryland settlement remains pending.
Investment Management LLC and Evergreen Internationl Trust.
The Kircher case is Madison case number 03-L-1255.
The two Putnam cases are case numbers 03-L-1539 and 03-L-1540.
statement appears in a Memorandum and Order entered in Kastner v.
sent to class members after preliminary court approval.
governance procedures and payment of attorneys fees of $350,000.
U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.
liability or wrongdoing under the securities laws.
class action where they claimed a loss of $1.27 million.
Spectranetics intends to defend this lawsuit vigorously.
problematic pacemaker and defibrillator leads.
arteries above and below the knee and within coronary arteries.
crossing of coronary and peripheral arterial blockages.
problematic pacemaker and defibrillator cardiac leads.
killed if they fall down stairs.
them to the store where purchased for a full refund.
mechanism, to stop the walker at the edge of a step.
in 2008 between a class of shareholder-plaintiffs and Telik, Inc.
Joseph R. Seidman, Jr., Esq.
case brought by internet retailers.
Internet retailers that was commenced in December 2005.
agreements in violation of antitrust laws.
similar allegations involving most of the same Defendants.
troubled toy icon FAO Schwarz in 2009.
class' request for payment of legal fees in Belknap and Brulc v.
A. E. Bud Bailey, Esq.
offer to be inadequate for the shareholders.
including some of the largest transactions in the United States.
June 18 that its goal was to "aid in a manifestation of the truth"
of the Messier era and said it should pay no damages.
can stay in France or do we have to go to the U.S."
million euros for any potential award.
Inc. of being a "pyramid scheme."
victims of the company's so-called pyramid scheme in that state.
recruitment fees of junior members.
similar allegations as those made by the attorneys general.
Jay L. Kanzler, Jr., Esq.
Court -- the local jurisdiction for YTB.
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are thrilled to welcome Adam to CCB."
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responsible for the death of her husband.
Mrs. Belville seeks compensatory and punitive damages.
William K. Schwartz, Esq., represents Mrs. Belville.
Case No. 10-C-1015 is assigned to a visiting judge.
in Kanawha Circuit Court, W.Va., The West Virginia Record reports.
exhaust, which caused him to develop lung cancer.
Mr. Scudder seeks damages in an amount to be determined by a jury.
Case No. 10-C-1023 is assigned to a visiting judge.
as executrix of the Estate of Jesse Elwood Osborne, deceased vs.
1947 until 1987 as a laborer, equipment operator and engineer.
Case No. 10-C-1024 is assigned to a visiting judge.
until 1993 as a machine operator and foreman.
Case No. 10-C-1025 is assigned to a visiting judge.
Kanawha Circuit Court, W.Va., The West Virginia Record reports.
1959 until 1991 as an insulator.
issues involved in the case.
Case No. 10-C-879 has been assigned to a visiting judge.
A California Appeals Court allocated a share of fault to the U.S.
exposure to asbestos on a regular basis.
Insulation was the sole entity to appeal the exclusion of the U.S.
Navy from the list of responsible parties.
Mr. Johnson had worked for FMC Corporation from 1972 until 1980.
trial to resolve all issues involved in the case.
Case No. 10-C-890 has been assigned to a visiting judge.
Corps Air Station-Yuma in 2006.
exposure from dust generated by the renovations.
Hazardous Air Pollutants for Asbestos (Asbestos NESHAP).
The consent judgment is subject to court approval.
liability, The Madison/St. Clair Record reports.
pursuing claims against Mr. Moser as the company's "alter ego."
same alter ego claims they now seek to enjoin.
alter ego asbestos claims, Mr. Francella wrote.
Mr. Taylor was diagnosed with mesothelioma last April 23, 2010.
Brian A. Prim, Esq., represents the Taylors.
Case No. 10-C-915 is assigned to a visiting judge.
money would not return his quality of life.
he would regularly cut and fit sheets of the fireproof material.
understood, had caused Mr. Wareham's death.
exposed that long ago displays symptoms some 50 years later."
working in unventilated areas without modern safety equipment.
affected his health and led to him developing mesothelioma.
caused by exposure to asbestos fibres.
successful career in the public sector.
still no better, and on June 10 last year, he was diagnosed."
he returned to work in Loughborough but left in 1949.
which was discovered to be asbestos.
as bronchial pneumonia as a result of asbestosis.
worked for Ashland Oil from 1968 until 1993 as a laborer.
resolve all issues involved in the case.
Cindy J. Kiblinger, Esq., and Victoria Antion, Esq., represent Mr.
Case No. 10-C-877 has been assigned to a visiting judge.
England, for the past 12 months.
closed while renovations are carried out.
GBP70,000 will be spent on making the area around the organ safe.
asbestos is a particular concern to environmental officials.
Protection will oversee the asbestos abatement and disposal.
hazardous material is located, city officials told the newspaper.
Home, in Derby, on Dec. 19, 2010.
asbestosis with heart disease playing a "significant" role in Mr.
Dr. Hunter recorded a verdict of death from industrial disease.
ADAO press release dated June 23, 2010.
countries for the next quarter of a century.
International Programme for Chemical Safety.
far behind other industrialized nations in eliminating exposure.
world, such an initiative by Canada is a giant misstep backwards.
lives, both in Canada and worldwide."
actions, the Ventura County Star reports.
being done last May 2010, if there was asbestos in the ceiling.
apartments as the work was done.
level of asbestos was found.
Duval, deputy air pollution control officer with the district.
according to the American Cancer Society.
homes in the 150-unit complex dripped into the walls and ceilings.
Devon that saw asbestos sheeting being dumped, BBC News reports.
Yarcombe, Honiton and Ottery St Mary.
Lane ran through the wood into south Somerset.
from the woods adjacent to the lane, the Council said.
found fly-tipped, you can still be liable."
Sharpe and Samir Najjar of Jacksonville.
testimony and thus their reports cannot be used as evidence."
Judge Angell granted summary judgment, without prejudice.
the year, and that both the air and dust were tested.
project that they are going to check it out."
school's windows to be tested for asbestos.
Three of the four samples tests displayed high levels of asbestos.
firm had regularly tested the air and dust at the high school.
be returning to the high school to complete more tests.
public from the materials identified."
informed. A specialist has been brought to deal with the asbestos.
enough settlements in her husband's mesothelioma claims.
of her husband's claims to lapse.
that it was the attorney's fault the claims had lapsed.
At one point, several attorneys overlapped in representing Mrs.
Court, W.Va., The West Virginia reports.
and Joseph Satterley, Esq., represent Ms. Johnson.
Case No. 10-C-893 has been assigned to a visiting judge.
becoming unwell. A post mortem revealed it was from mesothelioma.
history to prove the exposure.
any one who is concerned at their Long Lane offices.
six tons of waste before being taken to a secure disposal site.
their decision on July 28, 2010.
for future development, reports the Columbus Local Record.
must be tested for asbestos, Mesothelioma.com reports.
said to have taken on four feet of water during the storm.
selectmen about testing the building for lead paint and asbestos.
However, weeks after the selectmen had voted against testing, Mr.
requires such action before a move with the building is made.
If the building is asbestos ridden, abatement would need to occur.
environmental firm, according to EastBayRI.com.
Joy A. Agravante, Ronald Sy and Peter A. Chapman, Editors.

matches: v. v. v. v. v. v. v. v. v. v. v. v. v.


text:
The postconviction prison disciplinary records of capital defendants (n = 73) who had been the subject of defense-sponsored violence risk assessments or risk-related testimony (1995–2007) that asserted an improbability of future serious prison violence were analyzed. During postconviction prison tenures averaging 4.4 years, none of the capital defendants was cited for accomplished serious assaults. The prevalence of misconduct was inversely related to severity: 54.8 percent were cited for some disciplinary misconduct, 27.4 percent for potentially violent disciplinary violations, 12.3 percent for assaultive misconduct, and 1.4 percent for attempted serious assault. Rates of misconduct among the capital offenders were equivalent to those among all inmates (n = 18,561, annual average) in high-security federal prisons (2001–2005). The accuracy rate of forecasts of improbability stands in sharp contrast to that of prosecution-sponsored expert testimony at capital sentencing that had asserted high rates of future violence.
An individualized consideration of aggravating and mitigating factors has been a constitutionally mandated aspect of death penalty determinations since the resumption of this sanction in the aftermath of Furman v. Georgia.1 The potential future violent conduct of the capital defendant is one such particularizing factor (see Jurek v. Texas2). In Texas and Oregon, this consideration is a “special issue” that must be answered in the affirmative for a capital offender to be sentenced to death (i.e., “whether there is a probability the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society”3). In many other jurisdictions, the “future dangerousness” of a defendant may be alleged as a statutory or nonstatutory aggravating factor at capital sentencing. Alternatively, a positive or nonviolent adjustment to prison may be offered by the defense as a mitigating factor (see Skipper v. South Carolina4). Death-sentence verdicts may turn on this consideration of future conduct. Concerns about the future dangerousness of a capital offender appear to be of critical importance to a capital jury, whether or not this prospect is directly addressed at trial (Blume et al.5).
Accordingly, more recent amicus briefs addressing expert testimony at capital sentencing filed by the American Psychological Association in United States v. Fields46 and the Texas Psychological Association in Espada v. State of Texas47 did not argue against the legitimacy of capital risk assessment testimony in general. Rather, these briefs contrasted the methodology and group statistical underpinnings of an empirically supported capital risk assessment, with the inadequacies of clinical/intuitive approaches that emphasize the capital offense, aberrant behavior, and personality features of the defendant.
Serious institutional assaults are specified as a predictive threshold in the capital risk-assessment reports and testimony, as well as in risk-related testimony by state- or defense-retained mental health experts, as this severity of misconduct seems most proportional to a preventive intervention of execution. This convention is consistent with capital application by Slobogin49 of the “legality principle” (i.e., that government intervention is not justified to prevent minor harms, particularly when execution is the contemplated intervention). Edens et al.21 addressed this concept of proportionality of intervention in practical terms of how a capital jury views its task: …[I]t is difficult to imagine that capital jurors would believe that their charge to identify inmates who would engage in “serious acts of criminal violence” should encompass those inmates who will throw urine at a guard at some point in the future if not put to death [Ref. 21, p 63].
No published study, however, has reported the prison violence outcomes of capital offenders whose sentencing trials included expert testimony utilizing group statistical data on rates and correlates of prison violence, as well as descriptions of correctional security capabilities, in asserting an improbability of serious prison violence by the respective capital defendants. Although the group statistical data on rates and correlates of prison violence point to a high accuracy rate for risk findings of improbability, this inference has not been tested in capital cases that were subjected to defense-sponsored violence risk assessment for prison or risk-related testimony. This study was intended to address this void in the current literature.
The forensic case files (1995–2007) of the senior author were reviewed to identify all defendants who had been the subject of an individualized violence risk assessment for capital sentencing by him, as documented by a report, demonstrative exhibits, or sentencing phase transcript. Also identified were all cases in which he had testified as a “teaching witness” (described in Refs. 15,16,19) in detailing the methodology and relevant group statistical data that would be employed in a violence risk assessment for prison or the security capabilities and effectiveness of the correctional department in that jurisdiction in minimizing the occurrence of serious inmate violence.
In cases involving either risk assessment for prison or risk-related teaching witness testimony, a similar risk methodology had been utilized or described. Rates of institutional violence among convicted capital offenders, convicted murderers, offenders sentenced to life without parole, and variously, general or high-security prison inmates, were both described and utilized to anchor the risk estimate. Rates of violent misconduct were disaggregated by severity, with more serious violence demonstrating progressively lower frequency and prevalence. These rates and the associated origins of the data were detailed through digital demonstrative exhibits and explanatory testimony in cases in which court testimony occurred.14,17,26,29,30,32,36–39 Empirically derived correlates of prison violence17,22,29,34,36,39 were often described, and again, illustrated with specific findings from various studies—for example, age (inversely correlated), education (inversely), prior prison sentence, prison gang membership, past prison violence, and length of sentence (inversely). Intuitive factors that are not predictive of serious prison violence (e.g., conviction for murder or capital murder, life-without-parole sentence, antisocial personality disorder, or psychopathy) were also described and illustrated with representative studies (see summary of research findings listed earlier in the article). If an individualized violence risk assessment for prison was performed, these correlates were applied to the offender in question (for a sample report, see Ref. 52). As they became available, actuarial models22,34,36,39 were also utilized in these individualized violence risk assessments for prison.
Jurisdictional-specific preventive interventions, such as treatment, discipline, and super-maximum-security confinement, were also described in testimony. For example, correctional regulations typically specify the security level(s) at which capital offenders (or those serving nonparolable sentences) will be confined. Base rates of inmate violence specific to those security levels were described where available. These corrections perspectives and data provided broad support for two findings. First, departments of correction are quite effective in limiting the most severe forms of violence. Second, should the defendant be identified by corrections professionals as a disproportionate risk, confinement options (i.e., super-maximum custody) are available that virtually negate the opportunity to commit serious violence. As a practical matter, despite the allegation of future dangerousness at capital sentencing, life-sentenced capital offenders are routinely placed in the general prison population of high-security prisons rather than in super-maximum-security units.
The inclusion of cases in which risk-related, but not individualized, testimony occurred was consistent with both full disclosure and the obvious implication of risk-related testimony that correctional capabilities/interventions would render future violence in prison unlikely. Forty-four federal capital cases and 123 state capital cases were identified as fulfilling the above-described criteria.
File data on the demographic characteristics and prison behavior of 43 of 44 federal capital inmates in question (data were unavailable for one federal capital inmate) were obtained from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. File data on the 123 capital inmates in state custody were sought by a formal written request outlining this study and specifying that only group statistical data would be reported. Where available from correctional department websites, inmate-specific information was also sought on-line. We were disappointed that, even with assurance of research-participant anonymity, only 6 of 23 state correctional departments provided the requested disciplinary files. The final sample consisted of 73 capital offenders: 43 federal and 30 state capital inmates, reflecting an overall attrition rate of 56.3 percent (2% attrition for federal capital inmates and 76% for state capital inmates). Nonetheless, this sample represented the only multijurisdictional examination of the prison behavior of capital offenders since Marquart and Sorensen28 reported on the institutional misconduct of the Furman1 commutees (1973–1988). Characteristics of this sample are provided in Table 1. Because this study was based on retrospective review of archival data and only deidentified/group data were reported in our findings, individual informed consent was not sought. This procedure was approved by the Institutional Review Board, Office of Research and Development, Prairie View A&M University.
To minimize the potential for bias, given the role of the senior author in conceptualizing the risk assessment procedures, performing the assessments, and subsequently reporting on the accuracy of the assessments, two research assistants independently reviewed the case files and correctional data on each participant. To provide additional independence of the findings, statistical analysis of the data spreadsheets prepared by the research assistants was independently performed by the second author.
Case reports, demonstrative exhibits, and transcripts were first reviewed to determine the type of assessment or testimony that had occurred (i.e., risk assessment for prison or risk-related teaching witness). Although prison violence was forecast as improbable in all of these cases, the degree of improbability varied. Accordingly, if a risk assessment for prison had been accomplished, the final risk estimate for a particular capital offender was independently retrospectively categorized by two research assistants as above, at or below the probability-anchoring base rate of capital offenders sentenced to life terms.
Second, demographic data regarding the participants were retrieved from case files and correctional records. Each case file and associated correctional disciplinary record was independently retrospectively reviewed and coded by two research assistants. Even though the primary variable of interest was serious prison assaults (i.e., an assault utilizing a weapon and/or having the potential to cause serious injury), total disciplinary infractions were coded as well as any violations involving violence or potential violence. These disciplinary data were variously specified by type of violence-related disciplinary offenses and severity of violence.
Third, discrepancies at any stage in coding by the research assistants were resolved by re-examination of the file in question. As almost no subjectivity was involved in coding the data, a re-examination of the file data produced agreement between the research assistants in all instances.
For purposes of this study, violence-related misconduct included the following: threatening bodily harm, possession of a weapon, inciting to riot, escape-related misconduct or escape attempt, engaging in mutual fights, committing minor assaults (including either creating apprehension of harm or resulting in actual physical contact), and perpetrating serious assaults or attempted serious assaults. The aggregate of these rules violations was termed potentially violent. Severity of prison violence was coded in a progressively restricted fashion: potentially violent rules violations, assault, serious assault or attempted serious assault, and assault with moderate or severe injury. Data were analyzed by federal or state capital offender, type of testimony, type of sentence, age, education, and risk estimate.
Most important to the predictive accuracy of assertions of an improbability of future serious violence in prison, only one serious assault was attempted, but not completed, by one inmate in the entire cohort. During a total of 318.5 combined inmate years served, none of the inmates were involved in a serious, completed assault that resulted in even a moderate level of injury, defined as resulting in admission to a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. In fact, the only violence-related injury of note involved sutures following a mutual fist fight. Further, there were no successful escapes and no inmate homicides.
Table 2provides an overview of the violence-related disciplinary infractions committed by the incarcerated capital murderers. The first column includes a measure of the total raw number (group frequency) of each type of violation. The numbers in parentheses indicate the group frequencies (where different) with an outlying observation removed. This outlying inmate accounted for nearly one quarter (10/43) of the total potentially violent disciplinary infractions, skewing many of the unadjusted summary statistics. The second column indicates the percentage of inmates (prevalence) involved in any of the violations. The last two columns standardize the frequency of occurrence as a yearly rate per 1,000 for capital murderers and a comparison group of all federal inmates incarcerated in U.S. penitentiaries (USPs) from 2001 through 2005 (n = 18,561 annual average).
The findings presented in Table 2 show that even among the various forms of potentially violent rules violations, the less serious variety were the most frequent. Fights between mutual combatants and minor assaults (i.e., requiring no more than first aid treatment, but more typically resulting in no injuries) were the most commonly occurring offenses, followed by threats of bodily harm and possession of a weapon. Attempting to escape (i.e., escape-related misconduct), inciting to riot, or attempting to commit a serious assault were the least common offenses. The percentages show that only one inmate was involved in each of these offenses. Comparisons of annual rates between the current sample and the federal USP inmates, although not a perfectly matched control group, show that the rates of serious or potentially violent rules infractions among incarcerated capital murderers are similar to the rates of such violations among high-security inmates generally (differences are not significant).
Table 3 presents rules violations aggregated by level of seriousness. Data included in the first row show that disciplinary misconduct was fairly common, with a majority of the inmates engaging in some form of rules violation. The measure of potentially violent violations presented in the second row included all the specific types of rules violations described in Table 2. Just over one quarter of the incarcerated capital murderers were involved in a disciplinary infraction where at least the potential for violence was present. Assaultive violations of any severity were less common, with just under one in eight of the incarcerated capital murderers perpetrating assaults, virtually all of which were minor. For all levels of seriousness, the rate of violations was similar once again to the comparison group of high-security federal inmates (differences were not significant).
Beyond the base rates of various types and levels of disciplinary rules violations, the current study was concerned with the extent to which it was possible to predict the level of improbability of future prison violence presented by capital defendants at sentencing. Although serious assaults were the outcome variable of primary predictive interest, the absence of accomplished serious assaults among this cohort made any further analysis of predictive factors for this level of violence fruitless. Even when a broader operational definition of potentially violent disciplinary infractions was utilized, none of the bivariate relationships among the categorical variables reflected in Table 1 were statistically significant predictors of the prevalence or rate of potentially violent disciplinary violations, probably because of the relatively modest total sample size and associated small cell sizes.
Although none of the comparisons reached statistical significance, the distribution of variance in outcome among the predictors matched expectations. As an illustration of these nonsignificant trends, capital defendants in this study who had been assigned a risk rating above the base rate (i.e., improbable but above the violence rate demonstrated in studies of incarcerated capital offenders and other relevant inmate groups) tended to have a higher prevalence of rules violations with violence potential (42.9% versus 21.4%), as well as a trend toward an elevated rate of these rules violations. As expected, inmates with higher incoming educational levels, a GED or high school diploma, exhibited a trend toward a lower prevalence of violent rules violations (16.7% versus 25.6%).
As shown in Figure 1, various levels of inmate rules violations tended to decrease as the inmates' age at entrance to prison increased. Some exception to this rule appeared to occur where the rate of various levels of violations dipped slightly among inmates in their early 30s and then increased slightly among those over age 40. The seemingly anomalous results among the older age categories should be interpreted with caution, however, because of the small number of cases at that level and the resultant heavy influence of individual cases. When prevalence was used to measure the outcome, the more typical pattern reappeared, with fewer of the older inmates being involved in serious violations.
Disciplinary rules violations by age at commitment.
The influence of age on outcome was verified in the logistic regression model presented in Table 4. The exp(β) indicates about a nine percent reduction in the likelihood of an inmate being involved in a potentially violent rules violation associated with each yearly increase in age. The only other significant predictor was the control for time at risk. Overall, the logistic regression model provided a decent fit to the data, with an R2 of 0.294 (χ2 = 16.582; p = .002).
As can be seen in Table 5, the accuracy rate of defense-sponsored testimony in the present study is in sharp contrast to that of state-sponsored testimony as reported by Edens et al.21 Whereas state-sponsored predictions of probable violence were wrong (i.e., false positive) in nearly all of the cases, defense expert predictions of an improbability of violence (i.e., true negative) were correct in a similarly lopsided fashion.
This investigation represents the first report of the accuracy of defense-sponsored mental health expert violence risk assessments for prison, risk assessment for prison testimony, and risk-related testimony at capital sentencing. These reports and testimony had specified or implied (in the case of teaching witness risk-related testimony) that future serious assaults in prison were improbable. Retrospective review of the prison disciplinary files of 73 capital offenders who averaged 4.4 years in prison found to date that these assertions of the improbability of future dangerousness were resoundingly supported. None of the capital offenders had been cited for an accomplished serious assault, an accomplished escape, or prison homicide, and only one had attempted a serious assault. The experience of these capital offenders to date reflects a markedly lower prevalence of serious assaults than was typically specified in their respective assessments of improbability or in testimony regarding relevant anchoring base rates.
Even when departing from any reasoned proportionality and utilizing broad operational definitions where little or no injury occurred, or where there was only the unrealized potential, violence remained quite improbable among the offenders in this study. In addition, almost half of these offenders had maintained perfect disciplinary records, having never been cited for disciplinary misconduct of any sort. In addition to their low probability of assaultive misconduct, comparisons with inmates in high-security federal prisons demonstrated that the capital inmates were also not a disproportionate risk for institutional misconduct, regardless of the level of disciplinary violation or violence-related infractions specified.
How do we account for offenders who had committed such horrific crimes in the community having such low initial rates of serious prison violence? Two explanations have particular merit. First, as Monahan43 articulated over 25 years ago, violence is rarely simply a function of the individual. Rather, it emerges from the intersection of the person in a particular interpersonal interaction in a given context. Prison is quite different from the community in its interpersonal interactions and in the restricted nature of its context.14,18 The effect of these marked differences is to sharply limit the frequency of serious violence in prison, even though almost half of state prison inmates at any time point are serving sentences for violent felonies. Capital offenders are similarly affected by these differences.
Second, capital offenders are long-term inmates. Prisoners serving long sentences have been reported as taking a different perspective on doing time. To illustrate, Flanagan53 found from interviews of long-term inmates that, by virtue of their projected tenure in the institution, they had greater incentive to preserve the privileges allowed to compliant inmates (e.g., commissary, visitation, recreation, work roles). As Flanagan described: One of the primary themes that emerged from these interviews is the self-perception of long-termers that they are in fact doing a sentence different [sic], qualitatively, from that of the short-term prisoners who occupy similar cells in the same facilities. Although long-term inmates are not necessarily more accepting of their situation than short-term prisoners, they appear to more fully realize the need to co-exist with correctional authorities within the confines of the institution. The view expressed by many long-termers is that short-term prisoners have little to lose as a result of misconduct and thus treat any exchange between inmate and officer as a confrontation. Instead of pitting themselves against officers, long-term inmates have learned to circumvent potentially “sensitive” situations [Ref. 53, p 364].
The inmate characteristic reported to be most strongly related to inmate misconduct in prior studies, age at incarceration,17,18,22,29,34,36,39,54–56 was also found to be the best predictor of potentially violent rules violations in the present study. Although no predictive factor apart from age reached statistical significance, an inmate characteristic found to be related to inmate behavior in previous research, educational level (e.g., Refs. 36,39,57) was related in the expected direction in this study.
Aspects of the methodology of this study and its findings bear additional discussion. The participants were drawn from the files of a single expert. This convention was notable in representing the first instance of an expert testifying in the capital risk assessment arena to self-report the available prison outcomes of these respective defendants. Reporting of outcomes of surgical or diagnostic procedures or other treatments by individual or affiliated physicians utilizing a common protocol is relatively common in the medical literature, but unfortunately is infrequent in the forensic mental health arena. The absence of such publicly accessible outcome data can allow faulty methodologies to go unchallenged. Indeed, the arguably notorious capital testimony tenure of Dr. James Grigson (a.k.a. Dr. Death) was not substantially curtailed until he was challenged on the stand at capital sentencing in State of Texas v. Jack Wade Clark58 with the generally favorable prison outcomes of 11 Dallas County inmates regarding whom he had predicted certain future violence. These 11 inmates had then been sentenced to death at trial and subsequently had had their sentences commuted to life or reduced to a term of years.
The convention in this study of utilizing the cases of a single expert provided uniformity in the associated risk assessment methodology, even as the underlying data progressively expanded and was updated with continuing research. More practically, the files of the senior author represented the primary repository of federal capital and multijurisdictional state capital risk assessment and risk-related testimony utilizing the group statistical methodology previously specified.
A single-expert methodology, however, may be two-edged. Are the predictive outcomes of a single expert sufficiently informative to be of scientific merit? Four factors suggest an affirmative response. First, there is no other report of the predictive accuracy of capital risk assessments of improbability of prison violence that would provide a contrast to the outcomes of state-sponsored testimony reported by Edens et al.21 Second, despite the attrition in the state capital offender portion of the sample, the number of capital case outcomes reported (n = 73) is not inconsequential in reflecting the prison outcomes of capital offenders. Third, the methodology and data underlying the associated capital risk assessments and risk-related testimony have been reported in both literature reviews and empirical papers, including many cited in this article. This publishing history renders both the methodology and associated data an open-source protocol that should generalize to other mental health experts who avail themselves of this literature. Fourth, as described previously, the current study is only the second investigation to report multijurisdictional capital offender outcomes.
A single-expert method raises the specter of experimenter bias as well. This concern is doubly magnified in this instance, as the senior author is one of the principal architects of the application of group statistical data to violence risk assessment for prison at capital sentencing and, as the current study reflects, the self-report of the predictive outcomes of this methodology. These assessments also constitute a routine aspect of the senior author's practice and associated income. Thus, the scholarship and practice that have resulted in a reportable sample also have a stake in the outcomes of that sample. The design of the current study has sought to negate the influence of such factors by tasking research assistants to review and code the relevant case files; by utilizing clear, disaggregated operational definitions of inmate violence that minimize subjectivity; and by having the second author independently analyze the coded data and prepare the Results section of the study.
Another problem involves sample restriction. Capital offenders who are referred for violence risk assessments by defense counsel, as well as cases in which the defense requests testimony on risk assessment methodology and/or prison capabilities, may involve offenders who have been preidentified by counsel as better institutional risks. In numerous additional instances, informal preretention consultations with defense counsel resulted in the attorneys electing not to proceed with a formal risk assessment. More problematic offenders, then, may have been excluded from consideration. In support of this hypothesis, the rates of violence among the capital inmates in the current study were substantially lower than those observed in recent studies among either federal29 or state34 capital inmates serving capital life sentences. In light of the potential exclusion of the more problematic defendants from this sample, studies examining rates and correlates of misconduct among entire cohorts of capital inmates (e.g., Refs. 29,34) or convicted murderers (e.g., Refs. 22,30,59) are preferable for specifying probabilities for capital offenders as a class.
That caution, however, does not reduce the importance of data regarding the defendants who are the subject of defense-retained expert testimony at capital sentencing. Even if the capital defendants referred for defense-retained risk testimony at capital sentencing regarding future prison conduct represent a restricted sample, the outcomes of such defendants arguably illuminate the assessments of future defense-referred inmates who were subjected to similar preretention screening procedures. In addition, capital juries are likely to have an interest in the predictive outcomes of defense-retained expert testimony regarding the future prison violence of capital offenders.
Other methodological questions bear discussing. While disciplinary outcomes were obtained for all federal capital offenders who had been subjects of violence risk assessments or risk-related testimony, such data were available for only a quarter of the relevant capital offenders in state custody. This lack of data raises the question of whether the results were distorted by the missing cases. Although this question cannot be definitively answered, there were no statistically significant differences in rates of misconduct when comparing the federal offenders where there was a 2 percent rate of attrition, with state capital inmates who had a 76 percent attrition rate. This comparability, combined with the uniformly low rate of institutional violence among inmates in this study, supports an inference that the lower proportion of state offenders for whom outcome data were available did not substantially distort the findings.
Similarly, no statistically significant differences were observed between capital offenders on death row and life-sentenced inmates in the general prison population. This similarity suggests that confinement restrictions had relatively little effect on rates of prison misconduct among these offenders. Illustrating the counterintuitive impact that heightened security and movement restrictions may have, in a recent study of convicted murderers in Texas prisons,59 those inmates under solitary restrictions on death row in Texas had higher rates of assaultive violations (all toward staff) than the life-sentenced offenders had on inmates and staff combined. The higher level custody afforded by death row was effective only in preventing the less frequently occurring serious assaults.
The follow-up period in this study averaged just less than five years. A counterresponse to the current extreme improbability findings, then, could be, “Not yet.” This is an understandable critique as the ultimate at-risk period is life-long among those facing a life-without-parole term in prison or until execution if death-sentenced. Inmates who exhibit violence in prison, however, tend to do so early in their prison tenures.22,35 Thus, the longer an inmate goes without serious institutional violence, the less likely such violence will ever occur.
Another limitation involves the reliance of this study on official disciplinary records, resulting in the capture of reported violence only. It is expected that this dependence on official misconduct reports is most problematic for rates of lesser violence and potentially violent rules infractions. The outcome variable of greatest relevance (i.e., serious assault), is much less likely to go undetected. Serious assaults, particularly those resulting in injuries that require hospitalization, as well as all significant assaults on staff, are quite likely to be identified and reported.
Finally, there is a question of whether there is sufficient variability in the predictive and criterion variables to support a viable test of predictive accuracy. Regarding the broadest predictive variable, all participants had been designated as improbable to commit serious violence in prison (i.e., no variability). A three-category assignment of degree of improbability was made for those receiving particularized risk assessments. Consistent with expectations, the trend was toward higher prevalence rates of potentially violent misconduct among offenders whose risk had been rated “above the base rate.” The misconduct rates for all severities of violence were quite low, however, providing minimal variability for either the singular or trifurcated predictive variables.
While these results, then, do not comport with the assumptions of correlation analysis, it would seem to “throw the baby out with the bath water” to conclude that they are not meaningful. As a growing body of data reflects, the serious prison violence of concern to capital risk assessments has a very low base rate. These low base rates provide a critically important foundation for reliable risk assessments for prison, not an impediment to them.14,17,18,20 When, consistent with sound science, capital risk assessments for prison are anchored to these base rates, highly reliable estimates of an improbability of future serious violence result. The more severe the projected prison violence, the increasingly improbable its occurrence becomes. When prison risk estimates fundamentally deviate from or ignore these base rates, errors abound. Although this statistical reality is obvious to scientists, it may be less obvious to capital prosecutors or to the courts and juries faced with determining the sentencing fates of these offenders. Thus, reports on the contrasting outcomes (i.e., false positive, true negative) of capital offenders whose prison violence risks were assessed by prosecution- or defense-retained experts, respectively, can be both important and relevant to these consumers. For capital prosecutors, such contrasting accuracy may affect their elections to sponsor expert testimony asserting “future dangerousness.” For the courts, the contrasting error rates of state- and defense-sponsored assessments may influence rulings on admissibility of evidence. For capital juries, knowledge of these contrasting outcomes may assist them in evaluating expert testimony and having confidence, when adequately informed, in their own risk estimates and associated sentencing determinations.
The assistance of Ronna Dillinger, PhD, Amy Nguyen, and Kiera Boyle is gratefully acknowledged.
Disclosures of financial or other potential conflicts of interest: Portions of the authors' incomes derive from performing violence risk assessments for prison in capital cases and/or providing risk-related testimony at capital sentencing. To date, these capital evaluations have been requested of the authors only by the defense.

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The government issued Tima a notice to appear in 2003 and amended it in 2005 and 2010. It charged that he was removable for marriage fraud (8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(G)(ii) ), for termination of conditional-permanent-resident status (§ 1227(a)(1)(D)(i) ), and for a moral-turpitude conviction (§ 1227(a)(2)(A)(i) ).
On petition for review, this Court did not reach the fraud-waiver issue. But we granted Timas petition because the judge and Board had erred in sustaining the charge for termination of conditional-permanent-resident status. Tima v. Atty Gen., 603 Fed.Appx. 99, 103 (3d Cir. 2015). We remanded for the Board to consider whether the § 1227(a)(1)(H) fraud waiver extends to the moral-turpitude charge. Id. at 103-04.
On remand, the Board held that the fraud waiver does not reach removal for a conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude. Matter of Tima, 26 I. & N. Dec. 839, 843-44 (BIA 2016). The Boards holding followed three of our sister circuits precedents addressing the same or similar provisions of the Act. Id. at 844 (citing Fayzullina v. Holder, 777 F.3d 807, 815-16 (6th Cir. 2015); Taggar v. Holder, 736 F.3d 886, 890-91 (9th Cir. 2013); Gourche v. Holder, 663 F.3d 882, 886-87 (7th Cir. 2011) ).
Tima again petitioned for review. We have jurisdiction to review his final order of removal because Timas petition raises an issue of law. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1), (a)(2)(D). We review de novo. Alimbaev v. Atty Gen., 872 F.3d 188, 194 (3d Cir. 2017).


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Lorentz symmetry underlies of all known forces of nature, providing one of the few links between gravity and quantum mechanics. It postulates that laws of physics are invariant under rotation and remain the same in a moving reference frame. Lorentz symmetry is also closely connected to Charge-Parity-Time (CPT) reversal symmetry that enforces the equivalence of particles and anti-particles. We are performing some of the most precise tests of these fundamental symmetries using sensitive atomic magnetometers that can detect interaction of particle spins with a preferred direction in space, such as the direction of Earth’s motion relative to the rest frame of the Cosmic Background Radiation. Our current experimental sensitivity is limited by systematic effects associated with Earth’s rotation, which creates a preferred direction in our lab. To further improve these limits we plan to move the experiment to the South Pole, which provides the most symmetrical location on Earth to look for the effects of cosmic anisotropy.
We are developing ultra-sensitive atomic magnetometers and exploring techniques for further improvement in their sensitivity using quantum entanglement. In particular, we focus on high-density alkali-metal vapors with non-linear spin relaxation mechanisms that allow for sensitivity improvements using spin-squeezing measurements. Such magnetometers are particularly suitable for practical applications and are already being built into commercial magnetic sensors. Similar atomic spin techniques can also be used for inertial rotation measurements and are being used to develop miniature gyroscopes.
Co-magnetometers consist of two spin species occupying the same volume and measuring the same magnetic field. Such redundant measurements can allow one to cancel magnetic field fluctuations and focus on more interesting interactions going beyond the Standard Model. One example of such interaction is an electric dipole moment (EDM). While all particles with spin have magnetic dipole moments, no permanent electric dipole moment has ever been found because it would violate Charge-Parity (CP) symmetry. CP symmetry is violated at a small level in the Standard Model, but this violation is too small to be seen by current EDM experiments and also is insufficient to explain the asymmetry between matter and anti-matter in the Universe. Thus, searches for EDMs are particularly sensitive to new sources of CP violation beyond the Standard Model. We are currently developing a co-magnetometer with 129Xe atoms to search for an EDM. Other effects that can be constrained with co-magnetometers include spin-gravity coupling and anomalous spin-spin interactions. The energy resolution of noble gas co-magnetometers can reach 10-27 eV, allowing one to perform the most sensitive energy shift measurements.
Physical chemistry applications of precision measurements.
We have developed several new physical chemistry techniques based on atomic physics tricks. We performed the first measurements of NMR scalar spin-spin coupling (J-coupling) in van-der-Waals molecules, which is normally obscured by rapid chemical exchange. Using hyperpolarized 129Xe and sensitive SQUID magnetometers one can measure the average frequency shift of proton NMR frequency from scalar spin interaction with 129Xe.
We developed a new NMR detection technique using polarization rotation of linearly polarized light propagating through the sample. Such nuclear spin optical rotation (NSOR) combines feature of optical and NMR spectroscopy and can provide unique information on molecular hyperfine interactions on solution. Currently we are investigating novel multi-pass optical geometries to enhance the NSOR signal and perform systematic studies in different chemical compounds.
M. Smiciklas, J.M. Brown, L.W. Cheuk, S.J. Smullin, M.V. Romalis, New test of local lorentz invariance using a 21Ne-Rb-K co-magnetometer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107 , 171604 (2011).
G. Vasilakis, V. Shah, M.V. Romalis, Stroboscopic back-action evasion in a dense alkali-metal vapor, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 143601 (2011).
H. B. Dang, A. C. Maloof, M. V. Romalis, Ultrahigh sensitivity magnetic field and magnetization measurements with an atomic magnetometer, Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 151110, (2010).
S. Ikäläinen, M. V. Romalis, P. Lantto, and J. Vaara, Chemical Distinction by Nuclear Spin Optical Rotation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 153001 (2010).
G. Vasilakis, J. M. Brown, T. W. Kornack and M. V. Romalis, Limits on New Long Range Nuclear Spin-Dependent Forces Set with a K-3He Co-magnetometer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 261801, (2009).
W.C. Griffith, M.D. Swallows, T.H. Loftus, M.V. Romalis, B.R. Heckel and E.N. Fortson, Improved Limit on the Permanent Electric Dipole Moment of Hg-199, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 101601 (2009).
D. Budker and M. V. Romalis, Optical magnetometry (review), Nature Physics 3, 227 (2007).
H. Xia, A. Ben-Amar Baranga, D. Hoffman, and M. V. Romalis, Magnetoencephalography with an atomic magnetometer, Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 211104 (2006).
I.M. Savukov, S.-K. Lee and M.V. Romalis, Optical detection of liquid-state NMR, Nature 442, 1021 (2006).
W. Kornack, R. K. Ghosh and M. V. Romalis, Nuclear spin gyroscope based on an atomic co-magnetometer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 230801 (2005).
M. P. Ledbetter, I. M. Savukov, M. V. Romalis, Non-linear amplification of small spin precession using long range dipolar interactions, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 060801 (2005).
M. Pospelov and M. Romalis, Lorentz invariance on trial, Physics Today 57, 40, (2004).
J. J. Heckman, M. P. Ledbetter, and M. V. Romalis, Enhancement of SQUID-Detected NMR Signals with Hyperpolarized Liquid 129Xe in a 1 mT Magnetic Field, Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 067601 (2003).
I. K. Kominis, T. W. Kornack, J. C. Allred and M. V. Romalis, A Sub-femtotesla multi-channel atomic magnetometer, Nature, 422, 596 (2003).
J. C. Allred, R. N. Lyman, T. W. Kornack, and M. V. Romalis, High-sensitivity atomic magnetometer unaffected by spin-exchange relaxation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 130801 (2002).

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