Reconstructing reality in the courtroom
Subtitle: justice and judgment in American culture
By: W. Lance Bennett and Martha S. Feldman
Contributors: Feldman, Martha S., 1953-
Series: Crime, law, and deviance series
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 1984
Place of publication: New Brunswick
Language: eng
Number of pages: 203
Subjects: Criminal procedure -- United States; Forensic oratory; Trial practice -- United States
Description: The authors suggest that the American criminal trial is organized around storytelling. To document the validity of this theory, they make use of data from more than sixty trials covering a variety of offenses ranging from shoplifting to murder
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index
Table of contents: title: Pt. I. Justice as an everyday process: Chap. 1. Storytelling in the courtroom.; title: Chap. 2. Formal legal procedures and implicit judgment practices.; title: Pt. II. A Theory of story construction and social judgment: Chap. 3. Stories and the construction of legal judgments.; title: Chap. 4. Truth and the structure of social judgment.; title: Pt. III. Creating the grounds for legal judgment: Chap. 5. Case construction strategies in trials.; title: Chap. 6. Rhetorical tactics in case construction.; title: Pt. IV. Implications for a theory of trial justice: Chap. 7. Toward a theory of the criminal trial.; title: Chap. 8. Bias in the trial justice system