Adversarial Case-Making

An Ethnography of English Crown Court Procedure
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-90-04-18726-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 116, 286 Seiten, Format (B × H): 1600 mm x 2400 mm, Gewicht: 658 g

Reihe: International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology

Cases are not objects at hand for legal decision-making; cases are not echoes from a past crime. Cases are, first of all, made within compound discourse apparatus, here the English Crown Court and the procedure/s attached to it. This book reveals the legal production of cases including their relevant features. The socio-legal ethnography visits the natural sites of adversarial case-making: law firms, barristers’ chambers, and Crown Courts. It examines the role and dynamics of client-lawyer meetings, pre-trial hearings, plea bargaining sessions, and jury trials. It focuses on the lawyers’ case-making activities, their procedural contexts, and the resulting cases. As an ethnographic discourse study, the book develops a trans-sequential perspective on the interrelated events and processes of case-making – and by doing so, overcomes the shortcomings of talk-bias and text-bias. The trans-sequential approach pays out in detailed case studies on an alibi, on guilt, or the barrister’s notes; it pays out as well in cross-case studies dealing with legal care, procedural infrastructure, or the case system in the common law tradition.

Zielgruppe

All those interested in the workings of law and how legal cases come about through systematic writing, filing, and talking.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Scheffer, Thomas

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Ausländisches Recht Common Law (UK, USA, Australien u.a.)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures
Foreword

Introduction
On field access
Rendering case-making observable
Outlook

1. A case of assault: The rise and fall of an alibi
The ontological versions of the alibi-story and its analysability
The rise of the alibi
Intermezzo
The story’s decline
Towards the duality of mobilisation

2. Framing law-in-action
Where and when is the field?
Event and process in Social Theory
Eventful process, processed events
Weighing event and process
Outlook: the adversarial procedure as eventful process

3. A case of indecent assault: Fitting sleep-walking expertise in
Interrogating a single case
Expert evidence in criminal proceedings
Sleep-walking expertise and its relevant other knowledges
Discussion: Distributed knowing and judicial decision-making

4. File-work and procedural care
Styles of file-work in a criminal law firm
Good reasons for different styles of file-work
Conclusion: Legal care in context

5. A case of wounding with intent: The barrister’s day in court
Before trial
The barrister’s work during trial
The closing speech
Conclusion: The minutiae of case-representation

6. Procedural resources and procedural infrastructure
The court
The file
The story
Towards procedural infrastructure

7. A case of murder: No regret!
Direct and indirect moralising
The moralising sites in a Crown Court case
Discussion: Characteristics and rationale of indirect moralising

8. The case in the case-system
The case as tripartite sign
Case, fact-sensitive
Case, ruled and ruling
Case, decision-oriented
The archive of the case-system
Off the case: Components in isolation

Conclusion: The micro-foundations of adversarialism
Mechanisms of case-making
Complexities of case-making
Epilogue

References
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Thomas Scheffer led the law-in-action Research Group. Currently he is Heisenberg scholar at the Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. He published on communication/ knowledge processes in migration control, social work, parliamentary inquiries, and legal casework. His research interests include micro-sociology, sociology of knowledge, political ethnography, and cultural comparison/translation. Scheffer is spokesperson of the section “sociology of law” in the German Sociological Association.