Bernier v. State - The Right to Counsel in Entrustment Revocation Proceedings

Theodore Bernier was adjudicated a juvenile offender in September, 1966, and was subsequently committed to the Boys Training Center (BTC) for the term of his minority. In February, 1968, he was released on entrustment to his parents. Almost a year and a half later, Bernier was questioned by local police regarding his possible involvement in the theft of greenstamps from a local store. Although he was released without the police taking further action, they notified an aftercare and placement worker assigned to the BTC of the questioning. As a result, the BTC revoked the entrustment, and the police took him into custody for return to the Center. He subsequently was returned without a hearing and the original indefinite commitment was reinstated. To seek relief Bernier filed an action in state court for post-conviction relief. Bernier contended in his writ that the entrustment revocation without a hearing and in the absence of counsel violated the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment, and he also complained that because state probationers and parolees received a statutory hearing, the entrustment procedure discriminated against him in violation of the equal protection clause. Additionally, Bernier argued that the statute from which the superintendent of the BTC derived his authority to revoke entrustments was impermissibly vague. Following dismissal of the writ, appeal was taken to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The court answered the vagueness claim by maintaining that upon commitment to the BTC, the juvenile\u27s rights were defined by the state in its role as parens patriae. The lack of specificity of the superintendent\u27s powers under the statute was considered irrelevant because he properly possessed unlimited discretion to act for the juvenile\u27s best interest., Although the court recognized that Maine statutes required hearings for probation and parole revocations, it found this right grounded within the statute rather than the Constitution. Hence, the failure to provide juveniles with a hearing and counsel at entrustment revocation did not contravene due process or equal protection because probation and parole violators also had no right to a hearing and counsel beyond the statutory grant. The court left unresolved defendant\u27s procedural due process argument that the entrustment revocation by the superintendent of the BTC so as to effectuate indeterminate confinement was unconstitutional because it constituted an imposition of sentence without the presence of counsel

Bernier v. State - The Right to Counsel in Entrustment Revocation Proceedings

Theodore Bernier was adjudicated a juvenile offender in September, 1966, and was subsequently committed to the Boys Training Center (BTC) for the term of his minority. In February, 1968, he was released on entrustment to his parents. Almost a year and a half later, Bernier was questioned by local police regarding his possible involvement in the theft of greenstamps from a local store. Although he was released without the police taking further action, they notified an aftercare and placement worker assigned to the BTC of the questioning. As a result, the BTC revoked the entrustment, and the police took him into custody for return to the Center. He subsequently was returned without a hearing and the original indefinite commitment was reinstated. To seek relief Bernier filed an action in state court for post-conviction relief. Bernier contended in his writ that the entrustment revocation without a hearing and in the absence of counsel violated the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment, and he also complained that because state probationers and parolees received a statutory hearing, the entrustment procedure discriminated against him in violation of the equal protection clause. Additionally, Bernier argued that the statute from which the superintendent of the BTC derived his authority to revoke entrustments was impermissibly vague. Following dismissal of the writ, appeal was taken to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The court answered the vagueness claim by maintaining that upon commitment to the BTC, the juvenile\u27s rights were defined by the state in its role as parens patriae. The lack of specificity of the superintendent\u27s powers under the statute was considered irrelevant because he properly possessed unlimited discretion to act for the juvenile\u27s best interest., Although the court recognized that Maine statutes required hearings for probation and parole revocations, it found this right grounded within the statute rather than the Constitution. Hence, the failure to provide juveniles with a hearing and counsel at entrustment revocation did not contravene due process or equal protection because probation and parole violators also had no right to a hearing and counsel beyond the statutory grant. The court left unresolved defendant\u27s procedural due process argument that the entrustment revocation by the superintendent of the BTC so as to effectuate indeterminate confinement was unconstitutional because it constituted an imposition of sentence without the presence of counsel

What isn't social tolerance ? The past, present, and possible future of an overused term in the field of primatology

In the past four decades, the term social tolerance has been utilized to describe, explain, and predict many different aspects of primates' sociality and has been measured with a large range of traits and behaviors. To date, however, there has been little discussion on whether these different phenomena all reflect one and the same construct. This paper opens the discussion by presenting the historical development of the term social tolerance and a structured overview of its current, overextended use. We argue that social tolerance has developed to describe two distinct concepts: social tolerance as the social structure of a group and social tolerance as the dyadic or group-level manifestation of tolerant behaviors. We highlight how these two concepts are based on conflicting theoretical understandings and practical assessments. In conclusion, we present suggestions for future research on primate social tolerance, which will allow for a more systematic and comparable investigation of primate sociality.<br

Research Notes: A spontaneous mutant at the st2 locus

In 1971, Detroy Green, Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University, found sterile plants in an F4 single-plant progeny row from a cross of Hark X Harosoy Dt2Dt2. This family segregated 66 fertile to 21 sterile plants. Microspore mother cells of the sterile plants were examined, and a low level of chromosome pairing was observed, indicating that the sterile was either an asynaptic or desynaptic mutant

Chimpanzees use social information to acquire a skill they fail to innovate

Cumulative cultural evolution has been claimed to be a uniquely human phenomenon pivotal to the biological success of our species. One plausible condition for cumulative cultural evolution to emerge is individuals’ ability to use social learning to acquire know-how that they cannot easily innovate by themselves. It has been suggested that chimpanzees may be capable of such know-how social learning, but this assertion remains largely untested. Here we show that chimpanzees use social learning to acquire a skill that they failed to independently innovate. By teaching chimpanzees how to solve a sequential task (one chimpanzee in each of the two tested groups, n = 66) and using network-based diffusion analysis, we found that 14 naive chimpanzees learned to operate a puzzle box that they failed to operate during the preceding three months of exposure to all necessary materials. In conjunction, we present evidence for the hypothesis that social learning in chimpanzees is necessary and sufficient to acquire a new, complex skill after the initial innovation

Evolution of humanity: English translation of the original essay by Kinji Imanishi. Including commentaries by contemporary scholars

In 1952, Kinji Imanishi wrote a thought-provoking essay on the nature of animal societies. In this essay, he applied the concept of human culture (which he referred to as Karuchua) to nonhuman animals by giving different taxa a voice in a fable-like conversation, thereby aptly transcending speciesism. While thoroughly inspiring for scholars who have mastered the Japanese language, the essay was only known to non-Japanese-speakers by its English abstract. Here, we unveil the rest of the essay for the English-speaking community. Furthermore, to contextualize the seminal text, we asked contemporary scholars working in the field of (animal) culture to comment on the essay in a conversational manner akin to the structure of the essay itself. To guide this conversation, we asked the scholars to answer the questions: “What was your first impression of the essay, and how has your own work been influenced, either directly or indirectly, by Dr Imanishi’s work?” and “In what way has Dr Imanishi’s concept of Karuchua been encompassed by Western approaches?” What ensued now lies before you. We feel privileged to present to you the first English translation of the original Japanese essay by Kinji Imanishi that has already inspired so many scholars and nonscholars alike in their quest for understanding the nature of social life. © 2023, The Author(s)

Cofeeding tolerance in chimpanzees depends on group composition: A longitudinal study across four communities

SummarySocial tolerance is generally treated as a stable, species-specific characteristic. Recent research, however, has questioned this position and emphasized the importance of intraspecific variation. We investigate the temporal stability of social tolerance in four groups of sanctuary-housed chimpanzees over eight years using a commonly employed measure: experimental cofeeding tolerance. We then draw on longitudinal data on the demographic composition of each group to identify the factors associated with cofeeding tolerance. We find appreciable levels of variation in cofeeding tolerance across both groups and years that correspond closely to changes in group-level demographic composition. For example, cofeeding tolerance is lower when there are many females with young infants. These results suggest that social tolerance may be a “responding trait” of chimpanzee sociality, reflecting individual-level behavioral responses to social changes. Additional, experimental research is needed to better model the causal drivers of social tolerance within and among species

Chimpanzees use social information to acquire a skill they fail to innovate

E.J.C.v.L. was funded by the European Union under European Research Council Starting Grant no. 101042961—CULT_ORIGINS.Cumulative cultural evolution has been claimed to be a uniquely human phenomenon pivotal to the biological success of our species. One plausible condition for cumulative cultural evolution to emerge is individuals’ ability to use social learning to acquire know-how that they cannot easily innovate by themselves. It has been suggested that chimpanzees may be capable of such know-how social learning, but this assertion remains largely untested. Here we show that chimpanzees use social learning to acquire a skill that they failed to independently innovate. By teaching chimpanzees how to solve a sequential task (one chimpanzee in each of the two tested groups, n = 66) and using network-based diffusion analysis, we found that 14 naive chimpanzees learned to operate a puzzle box that they failed to operate during the preceding three months of exposure to all necessary materials. In conjunction, we present evidence for the hypothesis that social learning in chimpanzees is necessary and sufficient to acquire a new, complex skill after the initial innovation.Peer reviewe

Evolution of Humanity

English Translation of the Original Essay by Kinji Imanishi. Including Commentaries by Contemporary ScholarsIn 1952, Kinji Imanishi wrote a thought-provoking essay on the nature of animal societies. In this essay, he applied the concept of human culture (which he referred to as Karuchua) to nonhuman animals by giving different taxa a voice in a fable-like conversation, thereby aptly transcending speciesism. While thoroughly inspiring for scholars who have mastered the Japanese language, the essay was only known to non-Japanese-speakers by its English abstract. Here, we unveil the rest of the essay for the English-speaking community. Furthermore, to contextualize the seminal text, we asked contemporary scholars working in the field of (animal) culture to comment on the essay in a conversational manner akin to the structure of the essay itself. To guide this conversation, we asked the scholars to answer the questions: “What was your first impression of the essay, and how has your own work been influenced, either directly or indirectly, by Dr Imanishi’s work?” and “In what way has Dr Imanishi’s concept of Karuchua been encompassed by Western approaches?” What ensued now lies before you. We feel privileged to present to you the first English translation of the original Japanese essay by Kinji Imanishi that has already inspired so many scholars and nonscholars alike in their quest for understanding the nature of social life

Chimpanzees behave prosocially in a group-specific manner

Chimpanzees act cooperatively in the wild, but whether they afford benefits to others, and whether their tendency to act prosocially varies across communities, is unclear. Here, we show that chimpanzees from neighboring communities provide valuable resources to group members at personal cost, and that the magnitude of their prosocial behavior is group specific. Provided with a resource-donation experiment allowing free (partner) choice, we observed an increase in prosocial acts across the study period in most of the chimpanzees. When group members could profit (test condition), chimpanzees provided resources more frequently and for longer durations than when their acts produced inaccessible resources (control condition). Strikingly, chimpanzees’ prosocial behavior was group specific, with more socially tolerant groups acting more prosocially. We conclude that chimpanzees may purposely behave prosocially toward group members, and that the notion of group-specific sociality in nonhuman animals should crucially inform discussions on the evolution of prosocial behavior