| Adversarial Case-Making: An Ethnography of English Crown Court Procedure Contributor(s): Scheffer, Thomas (Author) |
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ISBN: 900418726X ISBN-13: 9789004187269 Publisher: Brill OUR PRICE: $157.70 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: September 2010 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Anthropology - General - Social Science | Sociology - General - Language Arts & Disciplines | Linguistics - General |
| Dewey: 347.420 |
| LCCN: 2010021648 |
| Series: International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology |
| Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6.6" W x 9.7" (1.45 lbs) 328 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher 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. |