 Comparing
Criminal Trials
The globalisation of law makes it increasingly vital to understand the differences
of legal systems. There are two dominant methods of comparison. The first one
(often implicitly) sets one focal system as standard and identifies discrepancies
in other systems. The second one isolates areas of comparison (such as disclosure,
bail, hearsay etc.) from a legal point of view. Both perspectives use thresholds
of comparison that disregard the specificities of legal practices in context
and process.
One can learn from ethnographic comparison here. Components such as
files, witness statements or closing speeches obtain their relevancy
via the position within entire assemblages and processes. In order to
compare the legal features contextually, the four case studies ( UK
, US, Italy , Germany ) focus on the practicalities of legal discourse.
How does this lead to comparison? One can reveal functional problematics
and the contingent methods to tackle them. How, for instance, is decidability
produced? How do practitioners
avoid surprise? How can somebody speak for somebody else? How does the procedural past matter?
The frame of comparison are neither single cases nor entire legal systems. In what we call "thick comparison", we focus rather on different procedural regimes that include certain criminal courts, procedural publics, scriptual economies, legal professions, stages of pre-trial, etc. One finds different regimes within one legal system. Procedural regimes order, link, disrupt and weigh fact producing events. By doing so, they make (un) available a certain procedural history. Hence, our study of criminal procedure focusses on knowing. We study communication processes and decision making in light of the actual knowledge processes and epistemic practices in different procedural regimes. We extended "thick comparison" to studies of political inquiry and, in 2010, to legislative procedure in parliamantary committees.
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 New activities
Special Issue on "Law and Biography" in BIOS
Call for Abstracts/French-German Conference on “Enfermement/Freiheitsentzug”
Latest Texts/Books
My ethnography on the English Crown Court procedure by BRILL
Review
Our comparative ethnography of criminal defence work in different procedural
regimes by PALGRAVE
Teaching in SS 2011
Scheffer: „Einführung in die Institutionelle Ethnographie“ Kurs in Moodle
Scheffer: „Was tun Verfahren? Eine sozialwissenschaftliche Debatte“ Kurs in Moodle
Scheffer: „Arbeitskreis politische Ethnographie“ Termine in Moodle
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THE CASE STUDIES
Comparison
