基本説明
The socio-legal ethnography visits the natural sites of adversarial case-making: law firms, barristers' chambers, and Crown Courts. As an ethnographic discourse study, the book develops a trans-sequential perspective on the interrelated events and processes of case-making.
Full Description
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.
Contents
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
