Recent orders
Evidence Damage and Disclosure
Evidence Damage and Disclosure
Crucial evidence damage in a legal proceeding could occur through various events causing destruction or significant alteration of the information on the object relied for such purposes. Investigations may be compromised to the extent of the damage depending on the nature of destruction sustained, which may lead to determination of reliance of the remains if any for the object in question. One example of evidence damage is when a fire breakout occurs, burning evidence such that it would be difficult to obtain the intended information. The level of damage sustained may determine the applicability of the evidence remains, but the reliance of the evidence is upon the court to decide against other assessment outcomes.
According to the court’s determination of the level of damage of the evidence object destroyed in such a fire, the remains may pass courts approval for some level of reliance (Coomer 2003). However, the court may find it useful for the proceedings to dismiss the remains to avoid compromising its decision, depending on such grounds it may deem irreparably damaged to rely on the remains in its decision. It therefore implies that the damaged piece of evidence loses its quality for reliance by the court and possible such reliance, if any, must be approved by the court. This underscores the importance of handling evidence during analysis and at any other point during legal proceedings.
In the event of such damage, the court is expected to act in four ways to provide remedies to the other party in the proceedings. It is important for the defense team to take caution against such court actions in the four different ways in order to ensure that the case is not entirely lost through such actions. Firstly, discovery sanctions may be imposed by the court in circumstances that enable the court to attempt to use its inherent powers discovery of evidence. Secondly, evidentially inferences may be allowed by the court in order to ensure that the proceedings use what limited information that the remains may enable. Thirdly, the court may institute tort actions if satisfied that the damage contained elements of intentional act or was as a result of negligence. Finally, the court may also enforce prosecution of such damage as guided by criminal law against actions deemed to constitute obstruction of justice, in this case through such destruction of evidence (Burnette 2012).
In case of uncovering of new damaging evidence in the middle of legal proceedings, the most appropriate action to take is to approach the court in order to ensure that the evidence is properly before court. The initial response in the discovery should be negotiations with the defense team and making it clear that withholding such information would be severely damaging to the outcomes of the case if it emerges at any stage of the proceedings. During the case preparatory stages, disclosure of information is deemed as a central focus on which to build the defense as opposed to avoiding the reality of such information coming out. Discussions and deliberations during case preparedness should therefore leave nothing to chance unless the evidence is deemed immaterial and inconsequential.
In view of the most appropriate thing to do, making full disclosure must come after deliberating on the defense moves to take against such evidence. Court’s requirement of the prosecution and defense teams to make full disclosures takes care of the misunderstandings that the two teams can find themselves in during the proceedings (Buisman, Khan and Gosnel 2010, p353). Despite the court’s directive, it would be difficult to make all disclosures since for practical reasons and the parties may drop certain pieces of evidence for various reasons. Among the reasons, why evidence may be dropped is the impact it may have on the pace of the case.
Alternatively, it would be not an option to consider leaving out such evidence in the disclosure in anticipation that the prosecution was aware of its impact but deemed it unnecessary and superfluous to needs of its evidence. In all cases, however, such an alternative will require sufficient preparation to counter its impact, in case the prosecution relies on it to build its evidence. In opting to leave out such evidence with the hope that the defense would find it inconsequential, the prosecution must be brought to the attention of the evidence and such inconsequential nature negotiated. Under the circumstances that the outcomes of the negotiations on the evidence could bear damaging impact on the defense, the prior preparation on countering such evidence comes in handy. It therefore underscores the importance of a thorough preparation by the defense and the importance of leaving nothing to chance (McGourlay, 2012, p153).
References
Buisman, C., Khan, K. A., Gosnell, C., (2010) Principles of evidence in International Criminal Justice, New York, NY: Oxford University Press
Burnette, G. E. (2012) Spoliation of evidence: A fire scene dilemma, [Online] Available from <http://www.interfire.org/res_file/spoliatn.asp> [Accessed 12 September 2012].
Coomer, S. J. (2003) The impact of spoliation of evidence: A survey of Texas Law, [Online] Available from http://www.texaslawyers.com/coomer/Paperspo.htm> [Accessed 12 September 2012].
McGourlay, C. (2012) Evidence statutes 2012-2013, New York NY: Routledge
Evidence Based Table
Evidence Based Table
Name:
Institution:
Evidence based table:
Citation Purpose/Design/Method Level of Evidence* Sample/Setting Major Variables Studied & their Definitions (IV & DV) Measurement Data Analyses Findings Appraisal: Worth to Practice
O’Haire, M., McKenzie, S., Beck, A., & Slaughter, V. (2013). Social Behavior Increase in Children with Autism in the Presence of Animals Compared to Toys.
The main reason for carrying out the research is to study the relations of young people with autism spectrum disease (ASD) with a grown up person. The study also examines children’s typically-developing peer in the existence of animals contrasted with toys. Moreover, two guinea pigs were used in the comparison. This is a quantitative research since it uses various available data that provides useable statistics in establishing how and why social characters in young people suffering from Autism improve when they have animals and not toys. During the study, a total of 99 students from 15 classrooms in four learning institutions were chosen to take part in three groups. Each group had a single child with autism spectrum disease and two naturally- developing peers. The three groups were separately video-recorded for duration of ten minutes each. The children were given ten minutes to play with the toys and another ten minutes to play with the two guinea pigs in this context. Two blinded viewers recorded the characters of those children with ASD and their colleagues. To give an explanation for the nested study design, collected data were evaluated using hierarchical generalized linear modeling. The level of rating is 98 percent since there is enough evidence to verify the claim that children with autism improve their social characters when they play with animals and not toys. The evidence provided could show that children with ASD had extra social approach characters like talking, having a glance at people’s faces, and making physical contact. They also obtained social approaches from their colleagues in the attendance of animal compared to toys. They also show characters like smiling and laughing in the presence of animal contracted with toys. There was no power analysis in this research. The number of children who participated in the study is 114. Every group had a single target participant with ASD and two typically-developing peers. During data evaluation, five groups were not included. This is because one student left school. The other reason is that one of the peers did not want to his behaviors to be recorded in the video. Other children did not meet the ASD screening principles. The dependent variable in this research is the number of children and peers. This is because it is not constant and keeps changing. On the other hand, the dependent variable is the number of pigs. For instance, the number of pigs remained to be two regardless of the number of students or peers participating in the study. Outcome variable were measured using behavior coding systems. It comprises of various codes for social and emotional characters. Video-recording was also used during the study. Reliability and validity was also addressed for each instrument. For instance, video-recording was considered to be reliable since it is not easy to distort the information obtained. To answer the clinical question and analyze obtained data, several statistics were used. For instance, demographic variable such as age and gender were used in the study. In addition, t-tests were also carried out for continuous variables. For instance, SCQ Lifetime and SSRS Academic Competence. The statistics used were considered to be appropriate for level of measurement of variable.
Children taking part in ASD screening instruments showed that there were some dissimilarity between children with ASD and their TD peers. Children with ASD obtained high scores hence this indicated that there were abnormal characters on the autistic spectrum. Studies on SSRS indicated that ASD children had less socials skilled characters than their TD peers. This is after their scores were low in the SSRS problem behaviors.
One of the strengths of this study is that the instruments used were able to provide accurate information. Additionally, it also showed the relationship between ASD children and animals. The main limitation of the study is that there was little information concerning the IQ of the participants. The above factors should be incorporated in the next research because they are important in determining communicative outcome.
Instructions: Using the defined columns- students should input the data from the chosen reference using this pre-formatted table. Complete for all 10 references vetted for your project. The points per category are found with the category prompts per column. Your total score will be an average across the selected literature. Be sure to double check and peer review this work before submitting it. Individual scores will include the overall evidence table score and results from peer evaluations. Include a cover sheet for this submission.
Burrows, K. (2014). Sentinels of Safety: Service Dogs Enhance Safety and Enhance Freedom and Well-Being of Families With Autistic Children. Retrieved from HYPERLINK “http://www.sagepublications.com”http://www.sagepublications.com
The main objective of carrying out this research is to establish the effect of service dogs on the safety and well-being of families of those children suffering from Autism. The other objective was to establish and illustrate vital patterns of character in the connection between service dogs, parents, and autistic children. This is a qualitative research because it provides viable reasons and opinions on how security dogs can be used to provide a strong multisensory stimulus that can fight reduced sensory and efficient arousal levels of those children suffering from autism. During the study, service dogs and ten families were used. Among the participants, there were 7 boys and three young girls suffering from autism. Interview information was obtained from the parents since the children were not able to communicate. The evidence rating of this study is 70 percent considering that the information obtained from parents could not be real. This is different from the first study discussed because it also involved the use of video-recording which is not easy to distort. The research did not have power analysis since it did not have any further findings apart from the already known ideas. Sampling design uses is the collection of different families, an autistic child from each of the families and security dogs. This is where the dogs and the families were trained together. There were also five home visits after a given period of time. Semi-structured interviews were also carried out within a particular time span. The dependent variable studied is the number of family members and the independent variable was the years of those students. Their ages ranged from 4.5 to 14 years. Inductive qualitative approach was used to show the behaviors and magnitudes of interest. Field notes from participating parents formed part of the coding system. The reliability and validity of the instruments were not addressed. For instance, possible disadvantages and advantages have not been discussed. After the introduction of dogs, parents were no longer worried about taking care of their autistic children. The dogs were taken as additional care givers since they offered another set of eyes. The other statistics used it that parent slept for longer hours because they were certain that the dogs could wake them up in case their child wanted to move out at night. One of the statistical findings is that the incorporation of the services dogs into the homes under study diverted the attention of the families. For instance, there were special needs to dogs that offer important services. Walking next to the dog made the children under study to control their pace hence the walking process was more effective and relaxing. The dogs made the children to be quiet and focused during medical visits. The limitation is that there were few security dogs and this led to the use of a small sample size. Moreover, the development of the relationship between human beings and animals is always believed to be a slow process.
All schools should implement bullying awareness programs
Name
Instructor
Course/ Subject
Date
All schools should implement bullying awareness programs
Bullying in schools occurs so much to the extent of one thinking that it is a norm. Bullying is an activity that occurs within and outside the confinements of schools, but a majority of the cases happens in the absence of elders. Bullying is an act of torturing others physically or psychologically. In schools, it occurs by students inflicting physical pain on others, abusing or mocking them. In addition, the activity can also be carried out emotionally, where students isolate themselves from other students. In turn, the stigmatized students end up being victims of bullying. Bullying has detrimental effects to both the culprit exercising the act and the victim of the same. Subsequently, it is of considerable concern that schools formulate bullying awareness programs to harness the ever-growing bullying habit that eats into schools and endangers the future of many students.
Research shows that children who take advantage of others and bully them have high chances of turning to criminal activities when they grow up. Moreover, the research also informs readers that the bullying effect may be transferred to spouses when one grows up. It is also shocking to learn that bullies may end up becoming child abusers in future. In this case, it calls for action to prevent bullying from prevailing in schools as the effects impact many people in the society (Kobus, web). Bullying awareness programs measure up to be an ideal channel through which many schools and authorities can stop bullying in schools. These programs employ various strategies to spread bullying awareness and educate people on means of preventing bullying occurrences.
On that note, the following are means through which these programs work. One of the means is by providing online help through websites. The programs can be accessed through the internet where the websites feed a lot of information to the readers. In such websites, the programs provide educative information in regards to the bullying topic. The information tends to provide information on how one may notice a bullying victim or a bully. This information is helpful to both parents and the authoritative figures in schools. In addition, the programs also offer the most appropriate approach for the victims and the executors as a precaution to avoid the situation from becoming worse. The online help is also accessible to students, mainly the victims of bullying. They acquire information on the course of action to undertake when being bullied from the websites (Kobus, web). Furthermore, through the websites, they also have a chance of handling the problem in a discreet way as they can access the material at their own time.
Moreover, bullying awareness programs can also be implemented in schools and the communities other than just on the internet. This can be executed by making physical visits to schools, presenting talks on the subject, and providing different solutions to undertake in order to curb the problem. This way many students are provided with a chance to learn the effects bullying can have on an individual, whether one is the bully or the victim. On that note, schools can easily implement bullying awareness programs in their systems (Langevin, web). In addition, the programs also offer psychiatric services to take care of the already affected students. This way, students, especially the victims, are offered a proper way of dealing with trauma and other negative effects obtained from bullying. Counseling is also a part of the program and students receive psychological help as they deal with their situations. The pieces of advice indeed help the students face their fears appropriately and prevent harmful retaliations from the victims towards the bullies.
The bullying awareness programs should offer a way of shielding the weak students from facing bullies. This is quite beneficial for students since it would avoid them from experiencing effects such as mental breakdown, poor performances in schools and skipping school. Students’ concentration in class tends to be heightened by various factors such as peace of mind. Having a program offering such protection, many students will be comfortable thus increasing their concentration (Langevin, web).
Including teachers in the programs is a significant step to take within schools and towards the students. Teachers are the authoritative figures in schools and thus fear and respect to them from students comes naturally. In turn, including teachers in the bullying awareness programs is a tremendous step as this is bound to make the system effective. This is because teachers are aware of the students’ behavior and it is the best way to implement the programs. In addition, the teachers are in a position to employ the systems effectively because they are always present at school.
Additionally, schools have to make sure that they implement their bullying programs within the boundaries of the state and federal laws. Different states have varying laws that concern the bullying issue and it is the schools’ responsibilities to acquaint with them as they forge their bullying awareness programs forward (Langevin, web). Moreover, the schools’ programs can involve accessing free federal and non-federal resources that aid in eradicating bullying. These resources are inclusive of training materials, tool kits and tips on how to deal with bullying. This offer extra materials to utilize while implementing the bullying awareness programs. Moreover, the program ensures to address the most appropriate means of dealing with bullying. In this case, the procedure one needs to follow, after experiencing a case of bullying and the consequences of bullying other students. In addition, it is necessary to accord all cases of bullying the same amount of seriousness as with time, many carry it out in different ways and for different reasons. For example, some students bully others based on the victim’s way of dressing, their looks, skin color or gender. Consequently, bullies end up enacting different ways of torturing other students. It is also crucial for the program to accommodate bullies and find ways of assisting them. The process may involve finding out the reasons that fuel their acts (Kobus, web). For example, one may be a bully because of a prior experience as the victim of the horrendous act. In turn, because of anger developed from such acts, they feel the urge to apply the same to other students. Others are bullies because of harsh treatments at their homes. This may be from their parents, siblings or relatives. Hence, this fuels the students to act the same on other students.
Once the source of bullying has been established, a solution can be easily formulated, and this may include different approaches. One of the approaches is to notify the source of bullying, for example, calling the parents and addressing the main issue that is affecting their child. In addition, it may also include offering solutions to parents and guidelines that assist parents in guiding their children. The programs should have a means of including parents and guardians in their quest to eradicate bullying in schools. This way the programs become a routine carried out not only in school but also at home. Subsequently, this ensures that the programs are concretely instilled in students, and it becomes their way of life.
Programs that enlighten people on bullying act as a way of eradicating the torturous acts in schools. Nonetheless, their spreading is the core idea that propels the programs. This is because the key is to ensure many people become aware of the program. Consequently, this spreads knowledge on the means of dealing with bullying in schools. Thus, the programs can also include the use of pamphlets and flyers to spread the news and their contents among different people. Moreover, the programs can also include the use of seminars that help spread the word of their existence and act as means of dealing with bullying. Punishment is not the only solution to deal with bullying and such bullying awareness programs offer a lenient and effective measure to undertake. The program is not an assurance that it will offer the most promising results, but it is bound to reduce bullying incidences. However, it is an easy means to implement as it is effectively rolled out in schools, which are the main institutions that house bullies. On the other hand, such programs speak of means to deal with bullying whilst using available tools in schools, for example, use of counseling as a tool to deal with bullying.
Works cited
Kobus Kevin. “Bullying awareness and prevention.” Toronto Catholic school board. (2006) : n. pag. Web. 3 December 2012.
Langevin Marilyn. “A stuttering education and bullying awareness and prevention.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools Vol.43 344-358 July 2012. Web. 3 December 2012.