Doctoral Dissertation Research: Contested Knowledge in Capital Sentencing Courtrooms

AbstractConstructing the Deviant：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。 在这样做的时候，我问：罪犯的社会历史如何被用于死刑判决？ 社会史在不同的法庭上是否有不同的运用？ 检察官和辩护团队使用社会历史的方式是否存在差异？ 哪些类型的知识体系被用来和不被用来在首都法庭上构建社会历史？ 当地文化的差异塑造了这些叙事吗？ 为贫困辩护的资金水平的变化？ 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，并阅读补充记录，这两个州根据当地文化和州政府对贫困辩护的资助而有所不同。 首先，死刑判决提供了一个独特的例子，说明在美国刑事司法系统中，罪犯的社会历史是如何被用来决定惩罚的。 在大多数非死刑刑事定罪后，罪犯由法官根据州和联邦指导方针判刑，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，美国最高法院要求对罪犯的社会历史进行审查，并由陪审团作出判决。 在这个“量刑阶段”，控方和辩方向陪审团提交新一轮证据，以证明罪犯应该被判死刑（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关于“罪犯的性格和倾向”的信息，以便罪犯的判决不仅与罪行有关，而且与他本人有关。 几天、几周或几个月，根据参与者的相对技能和努力程度，控方和辩方提出了各种证据，他们认为这些证据将说服陪审员将被告的传记或特定性格与较轻或较重的惩罚联系起来。 通过分析死刑被告的社会历史是如何构建的，我们更好地评估社会历史是否以及如何在刑事判决的其他领域中使用，同时考虑到罪犯社会历史的呈现反映当地背景和/或国家致力于贫困辩护的资金水平的变化程度。死刑审判为我们提供了一个多维度的、无中介的场所，通过它来研究当代话语中越轨行为的互动建构，从而为知识社会学和表演社会学做出贡献。 与许多关于死刑的研究不同，该项目主要关注的不是死刑审判的结果。 相反，它质疑构成审判的相互竞争的叙述的话语内容：检察官，辩护律师，证人，法官和法庭人员构建和质疑被告的性格的方式。 偏离通常在受单一声音、机构、受众、作者或学科限制的网站中进行研究。 死刑判决的审判是可变的，灵活的，不和谐的：控方和辩方都要求医生，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，狱警和其他人的任何组合。 此外，由于这种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.