 To get ready for trial
The career of discursive objects in criminal trials can be examined in various scopes, periods and stages. Referring back to the diagram above, one would locate these analyses around the "in court" stage. Here I suceeded by accompanying barristers - as the in-court-lawyer - during the very last moments of the legal matter. The barristers' notes provided great insights into the work done at this late point and the ressources utilised for it.
The barrister underlined the statements given in the brief, selected and collected modules, created unified spaces of comparison, contrasted written documents and oral testimonies and, finally, scripted his/her oral contributions. The moment-to-moment analysis of the barrister's investments shows that and how oral and written statements are deeply intertwined on a practical level. The adverserial trial looks, from this perspective, less oral than commonly imagined. It looks rather like a contest for which words are mobilised from all over the place. They obtain weight far beyond their usual relevance.
Words that enter the court hearing do not gain relevance simply in line with adjacent words but with the statements or discursive facts collected during pre-trial and trial. "Getting ready for trial" means this: overviewing and controlling the "field of presence" (Foucault) in order to manouevre safetly in it. This is the art of advocacy. It is a practical craftwork that plays a decisive role for what the case looks like and for what the final decision is: guilty or not guilty.
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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
To get ready for trial
