Stem cell patents after the america invents act.

Under the newly passed Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office may hear new challenges to stem cell patents.

Brain death and Islam: the interface of religion, culture, history, law, and modern medicine.

How one defines death may vary. It is important for clinicians to recognize those aspects of a patient's religious beliefs that may directly influence medical care and how such practices may interface with local laws governing the determination of death. Debate continues about the validity and certainty of brain death criteria within Islamic traditions.

"The ladder of the law has no top and no bottom": how therapeutic jurisprudence can give life to international human rights.

In the past two decades, therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) has become one of the most important theoretical approaches to the law. But, there has, as of yet, been puzzlingly little written about the relationship between TJ and international human rights law. To be sure, there has been some preliminary and exploratory work on the relationship between TJ and international law in general, but virtually nothing on its relationship to international human rights law in a mental disability law context.

Closed medical negligence claims can drive patient safety and reduce litigation.

Background: Medical liability reform is viewed by many physician groups as a means of reducing medical malpractice litigation and lowering healthcare costs. However, alternative approaches such as closed medical negligence claims data may also achieve these goals.

Questions/purposes: We asked whether information gleaned from closed claims related to medical negligence could promote patient safety and reduce costs related to medical liability.

"Good and bad, I defined these terms, quite clear no doubt somehow": Neuroimaging and competency to be executed after Panetti.

There has been little consideration, in either the caselaw or the scholarly literature, of the potential impact of neuroimaging on cases assessing whether a seriously mentally disabled death row defendant is competent to be executed. The Supreme Court's 2007 decision in Panetti v. Quarterman significantly expanded its jurisprudence by ruling that such a defendant had a constitutional right to make a showing that his mental illness "obstruct[ed] a rational understanding of the State's reason for his execution.

"Too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity": Some therapeutic jurisprudence dilemmas in the representation of criminal defendants in incompetency and insanity cases.

Little attention has been paid to the importance of the relationship between therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) and the role of criminal defense lawyers in insanity and incompetency-to-stand-trial (IST) cases. That inattention is especially noteworthy in light of the dismal track record of counsel providing services to defendants who are part of this cohort of incompetency-status-raisers and insanity-defense-pleaders. On one hand, this lack of attention is a surprise as TJ scholars have, in recent years, turned their attention to virtually every other aspect of the legal system.

"It's doom alone that counts": can international human rights law be an effective source of rights in correctional conditions litigation?

Over the past three decades, the U.S. judiciary has grown increasingly less receptive to claims by convicted felons as to the conditions of their confinement while in prison.

Therapeutic jurisprudence and outpatient commitment law: Kendra's Law and case study.

This article considers the implications of assisted outpatient commitment laws (OPC), with specific focus on New York's "Kendra's Law" through the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ). In this article, the author offers perspectives on the relationship between involuntary civil commitment, outpatient commitment, and the concept of the "least restrictive alternative"; considers pertinent empirical research, and looks at OPC's controversial relationship to forced drugging. Here, the civil libertarian critique is briefly considered, as well as the MacArthur Research Network research.

Beyond Dusky and Godinez: competency before and after trial.

Scholars have carefully considered all aspects of the incompetency to stand trial process, questions involving incompetency to confess, questions involving incompetency to be executed, and, to a lesser extent, questions related to incompetency to plead guilty or to waive counsel, but little attention has been paid to the relationship between incompetency and the full range of other criminal procedure issues: sentencing, appeals, consent to searches, and others. This article discusses this range of issues, assesses the factors relied upon by courts in deciding these cases and attempts to offer an agenda for future scholarly developments in this area.

Religious freedom, reproductive health care, and hospital mergers.

This article examines the impact of hospital mergers and the formation of health care networks involving religious hospitals on the provision of reproductive health care. Although instances of access to such services being curtailed at non-Catholic religious facilities have been reported, no systematic study of hospitals owned by other religious denominations has yet been done. Accordingly, the author focuses on Roman Catholic institutions and policies.