Tag: exist

In An Age Of Social Media Do Unbiased Jurors Exist? – Dzokhar Tsarnaev, (Boston Marathon Bomber) Supreme Court Appeal
SOCIETY

In An Age Of Social Media Do Unbiased Jurors Exist? – Dzokhar Tsarnaev, (Boston Marathon Bomber) Supreme Court Appeal

Thaddeus Hoffmeister, University of Dayton The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument on Oct. 13, 2021, in the case of Dzokhar Tsarnaev, the lone surviving Boston Marathon bomber. While much of the news coverage has focused on whether the court will uphold the death penalty for Tsarnaev, the case also presents a fundamental question for this era: Is it possible to find unbiased citizens to serve on a jury in high-profile cases during an age of ubiquitous social media? This aspect of the case focuses on the “voir dire” process, which employs a French term that roughly translates to “speak the truth.” Voir dire occurs prior to the start of trial, when lawyers or the judge, depending on the jurisdiction, question prospective jurors to determine whether they harbor any kind of bias or prejud...
CULTURE

Broken Mirrors Cause Bad Luck – How Did The Superstition Start And Why Does It Still Exist?

Barry Markovsky, University of South Carolina Every human culture has superstitions. In some Asian societies people believe that sweeping a floor after sunset brings bad luck, and that it’s a curse to leave chopsticks standing in a bowl of rice. In the U.S., some people panic if they accidentally walk under a ladder or see a black cat cross their path. Also, many tall buildings don’t label their 13th floors as such because of that number’s association with bad luck. The origins of many superstitions are unknown. Others can be traced to specific times in history. Included in this second category is a superstition that is between 2,000 and 2,700 years old: Breaking a mirror brings seven years of bad luck. It so happened that in both ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, reflected images wer...
Journalism

Does African-American Literature Exist?

The question of what makes a piece of writing African American literature or not is one that I have never been confronted with before. I have certainly never been challenged to question the entire existence of the genre before taking a course entitled "ENGL 234: Major Writers in African American Literature". On the contrary, frequent evenings spent perusing bookstores have fortified the notion in my mind that the genre is alive and well. Other literature courses have not touched on this subject at all much less brought this question to light. Through that course, however, I found that it is certainly one worth exploring and one that deserves a definitive answer. I have come to understand the genre of African American literature as encompassing any piece of literature that deals specificall...
SOCIAL JUSTICE

If Being Black is not a Crime: Why Does Racial Discrimination Exist in the Criminal Justice System?

Racial discrimination has been the main entrée at everyone's dinner table for the past decade. Nowadays, everyone has an opinion about racial discrimination; even researchers have agreed to disagree on many aspects of the question. While various researchers debate on the issue from various approaches, it is evident that racial discrimination is deeply-rooted in the criminal justice system. The term racial discrimination has been used interchangeably with the term "racial profiling," and the evidence is shown in prosecutorial convictions. Racial discrimination is the result of cumulative unethical practices that have not been properly addressed or redressed within the justice system.These presumed practices include but are not limited to racial profiling, disparity practices, unethical poli...