The Logic and Value of the Presumption of Doli Incapax (Failing That, an Incapacity Defence).

Children who do not understand the serious wrongness of their actions lack criminal capacity and cannot be convicted. At common law, children under seven are deemed to lack criminal capacity, children over 14 possess full capacity and children between seven and 14 are rebuttably presumed to lack capacity; the prosecution must prove capacity beyond reasonable doubt. Australia has increased the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) to 10 and is considering a further increase. England & Wales and Northern Ireland have raised the MACR to 10 but have abolished the rebuttable presumption: at age 10, all children are assigned full criminal capacity. This article agrees with international calls for the MACR to be raised but argues that it is more important that the rebuttable presumption should be retained and extended. Children's brains and decision-making capacities continue to develop throughout their teenage years at different rates. The rebuttable presumption provides individualised justice for children facing developmental difficulties. To wrongfully convict a child who lacks capacity will unjustly damage their life chances. Where a child does have capacity, a variety of evidence may be available to the prosecution to prove it. If the prosecution fails to discharge the burden, the child should be acquitted. The acquittal may be mistaken, but this error is far less harmful than a wrongful conviction.

A NIST facility for resonant soft x-ray scattering measuring nano-scale soft matter structure at NSLS-II.

We present the design and performance of a polarized resonant soft x-ray scattering (RSoXS) station for soft matter characterization built by the national institute of standards and technology at the national synchrotron light source-II (NSLS-II). The RSoXS station is located within the spectroscopy soft and tender beamline suite at NSLS-II located in Brookhaven national laboratory, New York. Numerous elements of the RSoXS station were designed for optimal performance for measurements on soft matter systems, where it is of critical importance to minimize beam damage and maximize collection efficiency of polarized x-rays. These elements include a novel optical design, sample manipulator and sample environments, as well as detector setups. Finally, we will report the performance of the measurement station, including energy resolution, higher harmonic content and suppression methods, the extent and mitigation of the carbon absorption dip on optics, and the range of polarizations available from the elliptically polarized undulator source.