Admission Of Guilt Research Articles

D’un droit défensif à un droit coopératif : la nécessaire réforme de notre justice pénale des affaires

L’année 2014 a été marquée par deux affaires dans lesquelles de grandes entreprises françaises ont eu à verser des sommes conséquentes au ministère américain de la Justice (DOJ) au titre d’amendes transactionnelles. Les deux grandes entreprises françaises ont peut-être payé pour leurs fautes mais aussi ‒ voire surtout ‒ pour leur mauvaise compréhension d’une nouvelle règle du jeu du « business mondial ». Ces deux affaires illustrent l’apparition d’un nouveau paradigme en droit des affaires, largement inspiré par la culture du droit américain, qu’il est urgent de saisir pour adapter notre droit. Cet enjeu est devenu crucial pour la protection de nos entreprises à l’heure du droit global. Il l’est d’autant plus que le nouveau modèle en construction est en perpétuelle mutation et qu’il est nécessaire de s’adapter rapidement. À cette fin, il convient de détailler les enseignements de ces affaires, non seulement en vue de transformer notre système de justice mais, plus profondément encore, notre culture, et de la mettre ainsi au diapason de notre temps.

Connect the Dots—March 2016

Connect the Dots—March 2016

The Extent of Voluntariness in Plea Bargaining for Economic and Financial Crimes in Nigeria

The concept of plea bargaining has globally been recognised and applied in criminal trials so as to enable the accused person to have lighter punishment or to be charge with a lesser offence in a criminal court, while the prosecutor on the other hand will secure conviction. Plea bargaining accommodates the consensual agreement between an accused person and the prosecutor in respect of the case against the accused which is subject to court’s approval or acceptance. In Nigeria, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is empowered by law to compound offences and to dispose financial and other related offences against the accused persons. Hence, EFCC uses its discretion to apply plea bargaining to some of the cases it prosecutes with the aim of securing conviction and to recover the illegally acquired property from the accused. In the case of Dieprieye Alamiesiegha, after an agreement was reached between him and the prosecutor (EFCC), instead of him pleading guilty as required by law in Nigeria, he explained the reasons why he pleaded guilty. This article examines the cases of plea bargaining in Nigeria and analyses whether or not the admission of guilt by the accused is voluntarily made or is motivated and influenced by some extraneous factors. This article finds that based on the cases analysed, the acceptance of plea bargaining in Nigeria by the accused persons as applied by the EFCC were not made freely and voluntarily as required by the law and best practices in other jurisdictions. This is because the accused persons were forced into it by some certain extraneous factors that were initiated and proffered by the EFCC against provision of the law.

Retributive Considerations in Parole Proceedings

In “Looking Beyond Risk in Paroling Denying Prisoners,” Dr. Dagan provided a refreshing critical analysis of the role of retributive considerations in parole proceedings. Its main argument is that if we are to make sense of the insistence on an admission of guilt, we cannot discuss parole proceedings merely in terms of prevention and risk. What is actually in play, at least in part, is retribution and moral evaluation. Taking retributive considerations into account enables a better understanding of the importance that admissions assume in parole proceedings and their role as a means of moral repentance and catharsis. In this brief commentary, we discuss Dagan’s thesis, offering a few remarks on the relationship between retribution and prevention. We provide some details on the nature of parole proceedings and on the practices that may increase the likelihood of moral and retributive considerations being taken into account contrary to the will of parliament and to the stated principles of parole.

ПЕРСУАЗИВНОСТЬ VS ЭВАЗИВНОСТЬ: СТРАТЕГИИ В СОВРЕМЕННОМ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОМ ИНТЕРВЬЮ

Introduction. Introduction explores the political interview genre, which is an efficient way of affecting the audience as well as a tool of forming public opinion. Key strategies of political interview namely persuasive and evasive ones are given. Basic tactics helping in carrying out these strategies in political interview are outlined. Materials and methods. Materials and methods are explored in a corresponding paragraph of the paper. D. Trump, H. Clinton and E. Macron interviews transcripts in the English language are used as material for the research. Transcripts are studied within the frame of conceptual integration theory (cognitive metaphor and mental spaces study) and discourse analysis (linguistic and extra linguistic discourse features investigation). Results. Results of the research represent specific examples of studying persuasive and evasive strategies revealing corresponding tactics while drawing conceptual integration schemes (for persuasive strategy) and examining particular phrases from the interview taking into account political and social context (for evasive strategy). Discussion. Discussion is devoted to summarizing the investigation and reviewing the results. Among the persuasive tactics Ettiketirung and discreditation tactics prevail in the material studied. The most popular evasive tactics are mitigation, generalization, compliance with the journalist, admission of guilt. Cognitive metaphor is an effective way of implementing persuasive strategy while it is used rarely in carrying out evasive strategy. As far as psychological image of the politicians is concerned, H. Clinton and D. Trump tend to be using persuasive strategy, whereas E. Macron prefers to be evasive. Also, the French President often implements stable emotional state strategy. Conclusion. Conclusion contemplates the outlook of the research given. Further studying of persuasive, evasive and other discursive strategies is planned based on political interviews and political discourse in general.

Apologies should not be seen as an admission of guilt or wrong-doing.

The RCN is to be congratulated for its excellent and straightforward 'Good practice for handling feedback' guide (News November 19).

Unilateral Forgiveness and the Task of Reconciliation

Although forgiveness is often taken to bear a close connection to the value of reconciliation, there is a good deal of scepticism about its role in situations where there is no consensus on the moral complexion of the past and no admission of guilt on the part of the perpetrator. This scepticism is typically rooted in the claims that forgiveness without perpetrator acknowledgement (1) aggravates the risk of recidivism; (2) yields a substandard and morally compromised form of political accommodation; and (3) comes across as patronizing and offensive to the recipient, thereby causing further alienation. In this article, my aim is to show, firstly, that none of these arguments is decisive and, secondly, that forgiveness is a suitable object of political concern in the absence of cross-community consensus on the rights and wrongs of a conflict. In this way, I aim to demonstrate that forgiveness deserves to be taken seriously as a means to civic reconciliation in a broader range of situations than many have allowed.

Medico-legal significance of service difficulties and clinical errors in the management of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases.

There is a significant growth in medical litigation, and cases involving the care and management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease are becoming common. There is no central register of such cases, and the majority are settled before court proceedings. As a result, there is no specific case law related to such conditions, and secrecy usually surrounds the outcome with "no admission of guilt" by the defendant and a clause about non-disclosure and discussion linked to the financial compensation received by the claimant. This review discusses common areas of potential litigation.

The Admission of Guilt and its Consequences in the Romanian Legislation

Abstract The admission of guilt has always had an attenuation effect on the punishment, meant to encourage the persons which have committed a crime to admit their deeds and to cooperate with the authorities in order to find out the truth of the case. In the last years, the legislator has used the admission of guilt to obtain a diminution of the duration of the trials and a relief of the courts of law. The Law no 202/2010 known as Small Reform Law has brought a simplified procedure for judgment the cases regarding the defendants which admit their deeds. The new settlement was a success, the procedure being used quite often. The new Criminal Procedure Code comes with a new regulation also known in other legislations as Plea bargaining. The simplified procedure for judgment is also stipulated. That is why we have to ask if admission guilt agreement has a change to succeed in our legislation and to be used in the legal practice or is meant to fall into disuse ab initio. The main aim of this paper is to examine how the conception of the legislator has evolved over the time and which legal stipulations are the most suitable for our legislation.

Dante, Virgil, and Christianity: Or Statius, sin, and clueless pagans in Inferno IV

Dante’s relationship to the virtuous pagans, most especially Virgil, has long been a point of contention. Most scholars would agree that at the heart of Dante’s ambivalence toward classical antiquity is his sense of a fundamental difference between paganism and Christianity. I explore here the specific nature of that difference by putting Inferno IV in the context of passages about light and sin from Scripture, as well as in the context of the Thebaid of Statius. The Christianity that separates Dante and Dante’s Statius from Virgil may consist of the difference in their attitudes toward confession – toward human failing and admission of guilt. Dante condemns Virgil to Limbo, because Virgil the poet, in contrast to Statius, defines heroism in terms of purity rather than in terms of responsibility and imperfection. Dante’s character Virgil certainly refuses to acknowledge any sin in Inferno IV, and in light of Scripture, that refusal brands him as one who has no truth in him. Seeing Dante’s Virgil in the context of the Bible and Statius highlights Virgil’s failings from the perspective of medieval Christian psychology and moral philosophy. In the end, Virgil’s refusal to acknowledge and confess his sinfulness results in his eternal damnation.

Nixon's “full-speech”: Imaginary and symbolic registers of communication.

Communicative interchanges play a foundational role in establishing the social. This being said, communicative behaviour can also lead to stalemates and conflict in which demands of recognition outweigh the prospect of hearing or saying anything beyond what is thought to be known. This paper foregrounds a dimension of communication often neglected by approaches prioritizing mass communications and new media technologies, namely the psychical and inter-subjective aspects of communicative exchange. More directly, this paper introduces and develops a Lacanian psychoanalytic theory of two interlinked registers of communicative behaviour. The first of these is the imaginary: the domain of one-to-one inter-subjectivity and behaviour that serves the ego and functions to consolidate the images subjects use to substantiate themselves. The second - far more disturbing and unpredictable - is the symbolic. It links the subject to a trans-subjective order of truth, it provides them with a set of socio-symbolic co-ordinates, and it ties them into a variety of roles and social contracts. In an elaboration of these two registers, illustrated by brief reference to Nixon’s admission of guilt in his interviews with David Frost, I pay particular attention to both the potentially transformative symbolic aspect of communicative behaviours and the ever-present prospect that such relations will ossify into imaginary impasses of mis-knowing (meconnaissance) and aggressive rivalry.

Present Affliction Affects the Representation of the Past: An Alternative Dating of the Levitical Prayer in Nehemiah 9

Abstract This article examines a group of confessional prayers found in Second Temple literature uttered by known/identifiable figures that are characterized by an admission of guilt on the part of the speaker and a request for divine deliverance and redemption. In Nehemiah 9, these elements are very obscure, the passage also demonstrating linguistic and historical signs that suggest it does not belong to this group or the same date. On the basis of the disparity between the prayer and its introduction, an analysis of its content, linguistic elements, and the features stressed in the historical review, this paper proposes that the prayer belongs not to the Second Temple period but to the days prior to the Babylonian exile, when the people were under bondage to foreign kings in their own land.

Ladies on the Loose: Contemporary Female Travel as a "Promiscuous" Excursion

This paper maps gendered trouble spots in contemporary works of female travel. Since travel itself is a metaphor for the slippage or displacement of cultural knowledge, there is need for closer and more complex readings of the female practice. This paper locates the contemporary female traveller on ground and on page, and flags some of the cultural myths and misconceptions that affect how she moves through the world. When women travel, they inscribe themselves across landscapes that have been previously overlooked, openly discarded and largely unexamined. In doing so, they travel intricate courses due to historical connections between wandering and promiscuity and continuing confusions between issues of mobility and morality in the modern world. Taking gender then as its interpretative parameter, this paper explores the troublesome nature of women’s travel, citing various texts as examples.

Ethics Case Study: KPMG Faces Indictment Over Abusive Tax Shelters

This case examines the recent investigation and admission of guilt by KPMG for marketing abusive tax shelters. The concept of deferred prosecution is examined. The actions taken by KPMG to aggressively market the tax shelters are examined. Students are required to read both the civil complaint against KPMG as well as KPMG’s official response to the Department of Justice inquiry. There is a comprehensive bibliography as well as website references for students to research the case. A detailed list of questions requires the students to analyze the ethical positions of all the parties involved. This case is directed to accounting students taking the required ethics course or an audit/assurance course and requires the use of an overhead projector that uses transparencies.

DNA retention after arrest: Balancing privacy interests and public protection

The S & Marper judgment of the European Court of Human Rights addresses the question of DNA profile retention in the absence of conviction or admission of guilt. It casts the problem as a question of balancing the principles of individual privacy and public protection. In the Court’s view there is a level of public protection conferred by retention of DNA from arrestees against whom no further action is taken that would justify retention, yet relevant data do not exist to determine the level of public protection gained by such retention. A pilot study is reported here showing that a group against whom arrest is followed by no further action exhibits levels of subsequent criminality (measured by frequency, latency and most severe outcome) similar to those of people officially processed by sentence or caution. Survival and count regression analyses suggest statistical approaches to be taken using larger and better samples. A research programme is outlined that would allow evidence-based policy on DNA profile retention.

Case Notes for the Impeachment of an Ability Traitor: A Textor’s Inquiry

These case notes are a response to “An ability traitor at work: A treasonous call to subvert writing from within.” The notes analyze Holbrook’s treachery despite her own admission of guilt. The inquiry is meant to provide firmer grounds for impeachment. The main accusation is that, as an able teacher and writer, Holbrook appears guilty of a trahison des clercs. The case writer is, like Holbrook, a textor, a weaver of threads, a fabricator of texts. The four main allegations woven into the text examine Holbrook as a writer who apparently betrays the essay form, a traitor who disrupts the view from nowhere, a promoter of assemblage as another betrayal of writing, and as a treasonous producer of a “dis/comfort text.” The main outcome of this textor’s inquiry is that the only treachery committed by Holbrook is more apparent than real.

‘Let me tell you about myself ’: A method for suppressing subject talk in a ‘soft accusation’ interrogation

This article describes interactional features of an interrogation method that is used by law enforcement and private security companies in the US known as the ‘soft accusation’ method. We demonstrate how the method, in contrast to the more common ‘story solicitation’ method, makes use of a ‘telling about oneself ’ activity to actually suppress a subject’s talk by setting up and maintaining an exceptionally long turn by the interrogator. This turn not only constrains subjects’ speaking contributions to the issuing of continuers and acknowledgments, and, as such, their opportunities to challenge or resist, but, based as it is on ‘telling about oneself ’, re-organizes the knowledge differential to one in which it is the interrogator rather than the subject who has primary epistemic rights of disclosure. We provide an overview of interactional problems associated with the story solicitation method and then consider how the soft accusation method is designed to counter them, particularly via practices of informing and describing that are associated with the activity of ‘telling about oneself ’. As we show, these practices make use of techniques of elaboration that provide a resource for turn expansion, as well as for seamless topical movement that works to positively align the subject to the interrogator’s talk and, thus, to smooth the interactional pathway to the subject’s admission of guilt.

The use of apology in health care

Apologizing after a health-care service failure is a surprisingly controversial issue that has received relatively little research attention. Health-care service providers are traditionally reluctant to apologize, worrying that an apology will be seen as an admission of guilt, which will decrease patient satisfaction and increase the risk of malpractice lawsuits. This apology aversion has led to a backlash, with some health-care advocacy groups even arguing that apologies should be mandated. This study explores the dynamics of apology in patients who experienced a service failure. As most health-care providers do not offer an apology in isolation, this study considers how coincident explanations and atonement change the effectiveness of apology. The results of this study generally support the use of apology, but its effectiveness depends on (i) the degree of patient dissatisfaction, (ii) the presence of explanations and atonement, and (iii) the relative balance of explanations and atonement. Explanations ...

Uitbeelding van skuld en boetedoening deur die gebruik van terugkerende kodes in <i>Die buiteveld</i> (John Miles)

Expressions of guilt and remorse through the use of recurring codes in Die buiteveld by John Miles The novel “Die Buiteveld” by John Miles is an unusual novel. The main character is an enigma as from the start the reader has doubts about him and is in doubt of the truth. The aim of this article is to determine how recurring codes are used to express guilt and remorse. The analysis shows how suspense gradually increases through the repetitive use of certain codes. Through most of the story the reader is in doubt about the true identity of the main character and in this way further suspense is created. Guilt and admission of guilt are suggested by the repetion of different codes. The reader remains ignorant of the true identity of the main character until the end of the story. This causes suspense. Guilt and reconciliation are intensified by recurring codes. These codes are pillories, paintings by Goya, references to different wars, photos, physical scars and a knife. Through the woman Isabel the main character is guided to disclose his past gradually. As the case in the layers of the Goya portrait more and more of his past is gradually disclosed. His admission of guilt leads to the possibility of returning to his home country and of living a new life there with his beloved Isabel. The reader becomes not only a consumer but also a producer of the text.

Negotiated Case-ending Settlements: Ways of Speeding up the (Court) Process

The subject of this article is a special type of fast-tracked case-ending decisions called “negotiated case-ending settlements”. Those proceedings are based on a kind of agreement between the parties, end with a real conviction of the offender and their legal consequence is a true but mitigated punishment. They can be found in six of 11 countries studied, namely, in England & Wales, Croatia, France, Hungary, Poland and Spain. The English guilty plea procedures, the French appearance before a court after prior admission of guilt and the Polish prosecutor’s application for a conviction to be rendered without a trial as well as the voluntary submission to penalty are examined more closely here. The comparative study focuses on the stage, where the negotiation is made, the conditions for the use of these settlements and the PPS’s role therein.