Political Deviance in Courtroom Settings (From Political Analysis of Deviance, P 47-71, 1980, Pat Lauderdale, ed. - See NCJ-72518)

• NCJ Number: 72519
• Author(s): J Parker; P Lauderdale
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 25 pages
• Grant Number(s): 07410-16
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare
• Sale Source: University of Minnesota Press
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper explores the defintion of trials as status degradation ceremonies and describes the process of counterdenunciation in which criminal behavior may be redefined as political deviance.

Abstract

Trials may be viewed as status degradation ceremonies in which the public identity of the defendants is transformed. This occurs when the jury decides that the defense's definition of the crime is socially unacceptable. This decision is not simply one of guilt or innocence, but one in which the defendant's total identities are stigmatized. This stigmatization can be avoided if aggressive countermeasures are successfully undertaken by the defense. Such counterdenunciations are viewed as political by virtue of their challenge to the legitimacy of the prosecution's authority and the attempt of the defendants to legitimate their own authority to speak for society. The following elements may appear in the counterdenunciations: (1) the defense must remove both the prosecution's denunciation and the prosecution itself from their everyday setting; (2) the defense must then define situations in such a way that the total identity of the prosecutor is transformed into something looked upon as lower in the local scheme of social types; and (3) in transforming the total identity of the prosecutor, the defense must show that the prosecutor's motivation is private rather than public and that the prosecutor has misrepresented this motivation to the jury. In addition, the defense must present situations showing that the private nature of the prosecution's motivation undermines the legitimacy of the prosecution's authority. A review of a number of antiwar trials demonstrates that the success of this process is dependent both upon the facility with which the defense is able to engage in such counterdenunciations and upon the presence of a broader context of social movements which supply the defense with legitimacy. Related literature is reviewed. Footnotes and approximately 45 references are included.