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- Creators: School of Social Transformation
The United States Supreme Court decided Ramos v. Louisiana in 2020, requiring all states to convict criminal defendants by a unanimous jury. However, this case only applied to petitioners on direct, and not collateral, appeal. In this thesis, I argue that the Ramos precedent should apply to people on collateral appeal as well, exploring the implications of such a decision and the criteria that should be used to make the decision in the case before the court, Edwards v. Vannoy (2021). Ultimately, I find that because the criteria currently used to determine retroactivity of new criminal precedents does not provide a clear answer to the question posed in Edwards, the Court should give more weight to the defendant's freedoms pursuant to the presumption of innocence while considering the potential for any disastrous outcomes.
There is a noticeable trend within audiences, made exceptionally more prominent by the rise of social media, in how fan artists and fandoms depict their favorite characters from particular media. In the case of anime like My Hero Academia and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, hypermasculine characters often emulate intense energy and toxic traits that viewers should normally recognize as problematic. However, there has been a growing movement within fandom culture to depict these hyper violent male characters in increasingly peaceful ways, often softening the character or surrounding them with flowers in a “flower child” vibe. This begs the question of why fandom has been attracted to this archetype in such a different way than before, and what attributes of traditional hypermasculinity lead to this level of admiration. Trends of romanticizing masculine energy is not new to fandom but while many focused on the admirable friendship and bonds between characters, this new trend seems to either idolize toxic and damaging behavior, or ignore it entirely. This research paper studies on notable case of this transformation process in the character of Katsuki Bakugo from My Hero Academia, demonstrating how an aggressive and violent character can be depicted in soft and gentle settings through fan created artworks.
Despite countless research reports, research studies, and studies of human psychology verifying that the Reid Method interrogation tactics used by police in the United States cause false confessions, the method is still heavily accepted and used on suspects everyday. This research paper will look into the Reid Method interrogation tactics, their connection to false confessions in order to establish a basis for repealing and replacing the Reid Method with an alternative interrogation technique. This paper will show that the guilt-presumptive nature of the Reid Method leads to innocent individuals falsely confessing and spending years in prison. Evidence of this phenomenon will be shown through research papers, studies, case examples, and an interview with a false confession expert Dr. Richard A. Leo. The Reid Method is problematic and jeopardizes the presumption of innocence for every citizen in the United States and should be repealed by an alternative interrogation technique called P.E.A.C.E in order for justice to be renewed.