Doctoral Dissertation Research: Contested Knowledge in Capital Sentencing Courtrooms

在这个项目中，我进行了第一次持续的美国死刑判决民族志研究。在这样做的过程中，我问：罪犯的社会历史是如何被用于死刑判决的？不同的法庭对社会历史的运用是否不同？检察官和辩护团队使用社会历史的方式是否存在差异？在资本法庭上，什么样的知识体系被用来构建社会历史，又没有被用来构建社会历史呢？是当地文化的差异塑造了这些叙事吗？资金水平的变化对贫困辩护有影响吗？为了回答这些问题，我将在一年的时间里观察两个州的死刑判决审判，并阅读补充笔录，这两个州因当地文化和各州对贫困辩护的资助而有所不同。死刑判决审判是民族志分析的重要场所，原因有二。首先，死刑判决提供了一个独特的例子，说明美国刑事司法系统如何利用罪犯的社会历史来决定惩罚。在大多数非死刑犯罪定罪后，法官根据州和联邦的指导方针对罪犯进行判决，很少或根本不考虑罪犯的社会历史。然而，为了判处罪犯死刑，美国最高法院要求审查罪犯的社会历史，并由陪审团作出量刑决定。在这个“量刑阶段”，控方和辩方向陪审团提交新一轮证据，辩称罪犯应被判处死刑（控方）或终身监禁（辩方）。按照美国最高法院的意图，量刑阶段向陪审员提供有关“罪犯的性格和倾向”的信息，以便对罪犯的判决不仅适用于犯罪，而且适用于他本人。在几天、几周或几个月的时间里，根据参与者的相对技巧和努力，控方和辩方提出了各种各样的证据，他们认为这些证据会说服陪审员将被告的传记或特殊性格与更轻或更重的惩罚联系起来。通过分析死刑被告的社会历史是如何构建的，我们可以更好地评估社会历史是否以及如何被用于刑事判决的其他领域，同时考虑到罪犯社会历史的呈现在多大程度上反映了当地背景的变化和/或国家致力于贫困辩护的资金水平。其次，死刑审判为我们提供了一个多维的、无中介的研究越轨行为在当代话语中的互动建构的场所，从而有助于知识与行为社会学的研究。与许多关于死刑的研究不同，这个项目并不主要关注死刑审判的结果。相反，它询问构成审判的争论叙述的话语内容：检察官，辩护律师，证人，法官和法庭人员构建和争论被告性格的方式。越轨行为最常在受单一声音、机构、受众、作者或学科约束的场所进行研究。死刑判决审判是多变的、灵活的和不和谐的：控方和辩方都可以传唤医生、被告的朋友和家人、受害者的幸存者、精神病学家、心理学家、统计学家、宗教人士、监狱看守和其他人员。此外，由于该证词是针对非专家陪审员的，我们可以观察到来自许多领域的专家知识是如何被用来为外行人提供叙述的。

AbstractConstructing the Deviant: Capital Sentencing Courtrooms as Sites of Contested Knowledge In this project I conduct the first sustained ethnography of American capital sentencing. In doing so I ask: How are offenders' social histories used in capital sentencing? Are social histories deployed differently in different courtrooms? Are there differences in the ways in which prosecutors and defense teams use social histories? What sorts of bodies of knowledge are and are not used to construct social histories in capital courtrooms? Does variation in local culture shape these narratives? Does variation in the level of funding for indigent defense? To answer these questions, I will watch capital sentencing trials and read supplemental transcripts during the course of one year in two states that vary according to local culture and state funding for indigent defense.Capital sentencing trials are an important site for ethnographic analysis for two reasons. First, capital sentencing provides a unique example of how offenders' social histories are used in the American criminal justice system to determine punishment. After most non-capital criminal convictions, an offender is sentenced by a judge according to state and federal guidelines, with relatively little or no account for the offender's social history. In order to sentence an offender to death however, the United States Supreme Court requires an examination of the offender's social history and a sentencing decision by a jury. In this "sentencing phase" a new round of evidence is presented to the jury by the prosecution and the defense to argue that the offender deserves death (prosecution) or life in prison (defense). As intended by the United States Supreme Court, the sentencing phase provides jurors with information about the "character and propensities of the offender," so that the offender's sentence be appropriate not only the crime, but to him as a person. For days, weeks, or months and to differing degrees of effectiveness depending on the relative skill and effort of the participants, prosecution and defense present a variety of evidence that they think will persuade jurors to link the defendant's biography or particular character to a lesser or greater punishment. By analyzing how capital defendants' social histories are constructed, we better evaluate whether and how social histories might be used in other arenas of criminal sentencing, taking into account the degree to which the presentation of offenders' social histories reflect variations in local context and/or the level of funding states dedicate to indigent defense.Second, capital sentencing trials give us a multi-dimensional and unmediated site through which to study the interactive construction of deviance in contemporary discourse, thus contributing to the sociology of knowledge and performance. Unlike many studies of capital punishment, this project is not concerned primarily with the outcomes of capital trials. Instead it interrogates the discursive content of the contending narratives that constitute the trial: the ways in which prosecutors, defense attorneys, witnesses, judges and courtroom personnel construct and contest the character of the defendant. Deviance is most often studied in sites that are constrained by single voices, institutions, audiences, authors, or disciplines. Capital sentencing trials are variable, flexible, and cacophonous: any combination of physicians, friends and family of the defendant, survivors of the victim, psychiatrists, psychologists, statisticians, religious figures, prison guards, and others are called by both prosecution and defense. In addition, because this testimony is aimed at non-expert jurors, we can observe how expert knowledge from many fields is used to provide narratives for laypeople.