Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T20:43:06.272Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Folk Knowledge as Legal Action: Death Penalty Judgments and the Tenet of Early Release in a Culture of Mistrust and Punitiveness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Benjamin D. Steiner ,
William J. Bowers  and
Austin Sarat
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article traces interconnections between folk knowledge—the everyday, taken-for-granted understandings and beliefs that shape people's perceptions, actions, and reactions to events and situations—and legal action. It examines the consciousness of crime and punishment as that consciousness comes to bear when citizens are given the responsibility for the life or death decision made by jurors in capital cases. It seeks to identify the sources of both general and specific folk knowledge about the release of convicted capital murderers not sentenced to death and to elucidate the construction and concentration of such knowledge. One state—Georgia—where folk knowledge of early release is distinctively concentrated and different from other states serves as a strategic site for the analysis. Using Capital Jury Project (CJP) data from 3-4-hour interviews with 916 jurors in 11 states, we show that it is jurors' specific release estimates that influence their capital sentencing decisions, and we explore how folk knowledge figures in jury deliberations, despite court admonitions that such considerations are not to play a role.

Type
Professional and Popular Conceptions of Criminal Responsibility
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , 1999 , pp. 461 - 505
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by The Law and Society Association.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Support for this research was provided by a grant from the Law and Social Sciences Program of the National Science Foundation, grant NSF SES-9013252. We are grateful for the helpful comments of Patricia Ewick and Stuart Scheingold on an earlier version of this article.

References

References

Amsterdam, Anthony G. (1999) “Selling a Quick Fix for Boot Hill: The Myth of Justice Delayed in Death Cases,” in Sarat, A., ed., The Killing State: Capital Punishment in Law, Politics and Culture. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Baldus, David. C., Woodward, George, & Pulaski, Charles A. Jr. (1990) Equal Justice and the Death Penalty: A Legal and Empirical Analysis. Boston: North-eastern Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Barak, Gregg (1994) “Between the Waves: Mass-Mediated Themes of Crime and Justice,” 21 Social Justice 133–47.Google Scholar
Beckett, Katherine (1997) Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Best, Joel (1990) Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern about Child-Victims. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Blanchot, Maurice (1987) “Everyday Speech,” 76 Yale French Studies 12–20.Google Scholar
Bowers, William J. (1995) “The Capital Jury Project: Rationale, Design, and Preview of Early Findings,” 70 Indiana Law J. 1043–1102.Google Scholar
Bowers, William J. (1996) “The Capital Jury: Is It Tilted toward Death?” 79 Judicature 220–23.Google Scholar
Bowers, William J., Sandys, Maria, & Steiner, Benjamin D. (1998) “Foreclosed Impartiality in Capital Sentencing: Jurors' Predispositions, Guilt-Trial Experience, and Premature Decision Making,” 83 Cornell Law Rev. 1476–1556.Google Scholar
Bowers, William J., & Steiner, Benjamin D. (1999) “Death by Default: An Empirical Demonstration of False and Forced Choices in Capital Sentencing,” 43 Texas Law Rev. 605–717.Google Scholar
Bowers, William J., Vandiver, Margaret, & Dugan, Patricia H. (1994) “A New Look at Public Opinion on Capital Punishment: What Citizens and Legislators Prefer,” 22 American J. of Criminal Law 77–115.Google Scholar
Brigham, John (1996) The Constitution of Interests: Beyond the Politics of Rights. New York: New York Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Canadian Criminal Justice Association (1987) Attitudes toward Parole. Ottawa: Canadian Criminal Justice Association.Google Scholar
Chancer, Lynn, & Donovan, Pamela (1994) “A Mass Psychology of Punishment: Crime and the Futility of Rationally Based Approaches,” 21 Social Justice 50–85.Google Scholar
Connolly, William E. (1995) The Ethos of Pluralization. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
de Certeau, Michel (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Rendell, S.. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Durkheim, Emile (1984 [1893]) The Division of Labor in Society, trans. W. D. Halls. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Edelman, Murray (1988) Constructing the Political Spectacle. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, Theodore, & Wells, Martin T. (1993) “Deadly Confusion: Juror Instructions in Capital Cases,” 79 Cornell Law J. Review? 1–17.Google Scholar
Ellsworth, Phoebe C, & Gross, Samuel R. (1994) “Hardening of the Attitudes: Americans' Views on the Death Penalty,” 50 J. of Social Issues 43–65.Google Scholar
Ericson, Richard V. (1991) “Mass Media, Crime, Law, and Justice: An Institutional Approach,” 31 British J. of Criminology 219–250.Google Scholar
Ericson, Richard V., Baranek, Patricia M., & Chan, Janet B. L. (1991) Representing Order: Crime, Law, and Justice in the News Media. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Ewick, Patricia, & Silbey, Susan (1998) The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence (1999) “On Stage: Some Historical Notes about Criminal Justice,” in Ewick, P., Kagan, R. A., & Sarat, A., eds., Social Science, Social Policy, and the Law. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold (1967) “Some Rules of Correct Decisionmaking that Jurors Respect,” in Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Garland, David (1991) “Punishment and Culture: The Symbolic Dimension of Criminal Justice,” 11 Studies in Law, Politics, & Society 191–224.Google Scholar
Gaubatz, Kathlyn Taylor (1995) Crime in the Public Mind. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geertz, Clifford (1983) Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gordon, Robert W. (1984) “Critical Legal Histories,” 36 Stanford Law Rev. 57–125.Google Scholar
Graber, Doris A. (1980) Crime News and the Public. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart, et al. (1978) Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hood, W. (1989) “The Meaning of ‘Life’ for Virginia Jurors and Its Effects on Reliability in Capital Sentencing,” 75 Virginia Law Rev. 1605–38.Google Scholar
Hunt, Alan (1990) “Rights and Social Movements: Counter-Hegemonic Strategies,” 17 J. of Law & Society 310–33.Google Scholar
Jamieson, Kathleen Hall (1992) Dirty Politics. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, Philip (1994) Using Murder: The Social Construction of Serial Homicide. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Lane, Mark J. (1993) “Is There Life without Parole?' A Capital Defendant's Right to a Meaningful Alternative Sentence,” 26 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Rev. 327–94.Google Scholar
Lefebvre, Henri (1991) Critique of Everyday Life, trans J. Moore. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Lofland, John (1966) Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Maguire, Kathleen, & Pastore, Ann L., eds. (1993) Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics. Washington: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.Google Scholar
Pastore, Ann L. (1997) Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics. Washington: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw (1926) Crime and Custom in Savage Society. New York: Harcourt, Brace.Google Scholar
Manzo, John F. (1993) “Jurors' Narratives of Personal Experience in Deliberation Talk,” 13 Text 267–90.Google Scholar
Manzo, John F. (1994) “‘You Wouldn't Take a Seven-Year-Old and Ask Him All These Questions’: Jurors' Use of Practical Reasoning in Supporting Their Arguments,” 19 Law & Social Inquiry 639–63.Google Scholar
Mead, George Herbert (1918) “The Psychology of Punitive Justice,” 25 American J. of Sociology 577–602.Google Scholar
Morehouse, Macon (1992) “No Parole Deal Signed in Murder Case,” Atlanta J. & Constitution, 27 Oct., p. C4.Google Scholar
Paduano, Anthony, & Stafford-Smith, Clive A. (1987) “Deathly Errors: Juror Mis-perceptions concerning Parole in the Imposition of the Death Penalty,” 18 Columbia Human Rights Law Rev. 211–57.Google Scholar
Roberts, Julian V. (1988) “Early Release from Prison: What Do the Canadian Public Really Think?” 26 Canadian J. of Criminology 231–48.Google Scholar
Roberts, Julian V. (1992) “Public Opinion, Crime, and Criminal Justice” in Tonry, M., ed., Crime and Justice: A Review of Research. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Roberts, Julian V., & Doob, Anthony N. (1991) “News Media Influences on Public Views of Sentencing,” 14 Law & Human Behavior 451–68.Google Scholar
Roberts, Julian V., & Stalans, Loretta J. (1997) Public Opinion, Crime, and Criminal Justice. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Sandys, Maria (1995) “Cross-Overs—Capital Jurors Who Change Their Minds about the Punishment: A Litmus Test for Sentencing Guidelines,” 70 Indiana Law J. 1183–1221.Google Scholar
Sarat, Austin (1995) “Violence, Representation, and Responsibility in Capital Trials: The View from the Jury,” 70 Indiana Law J. 1103–35.Google Scholar
Sarat, Austin, & Kearns, Thomas R. (1993) “Beyond the Great Divide,” in Sarat, A. & Kearns, T. R., ed., Law in Everyday Life. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Sasson, Theodore (1995) Crime Talk. New York: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart A. (1984) The Politics of Law and Order: Street Crime and Public Policy. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart A. (1998) “Criminology and the Politicization of Crime and Punishment,” in Mars, G. & Nelken, D., eds., Politics, Crime Control, and Culture. Aldershot, Eng.: Dartmouth/Ashgate.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Philip, & Tumber, Howard (1994) Reporting Crime: The Media Politics of Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Schutz, Alfred (1967) The Phenomenology of the Social World, trans. Walsh, G. & Lemert, F.. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Schutz, Alfred, & Luckmann, Thomas (1973) The Structures of the Life-World, trans. Zaner, R. & Engelhardt, H. T.. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Shepard, Beverly (1992) “Gunman Convicted in Clerk's Death Gets Life Term,” Atlanta J. & Constitution, 24 Oct., p. B2.Google Scholar
Silk, Mark (1996) “Juries Prefer Alternative to Death Penalty,” Atlanta J. & Constitution, 3 July, p. B1.Google Scholar
Simon, Jonathan (1997) “Governing through Crime” in Friedman, L. M. & Fisher, G., eds., The Crime Conundrum: Essays in Criminal Justice. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Skogan, Wesley G. (1990) Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Decay in American Neighborhoods. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Skogan, Wesley G., & Maxfield, Michael G. (1981) Coping with Crime: Individual and Neighborhood Reactions. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Sloop, John M. (1996) The Cultural Prison: Discourse, Prisoners, and Punishment. Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Spector, Malcolm, & Kitsuse, John I. (1977) Constructing Social Problems. Menlo Park, CA: Cummings.Google Scholar
Trubek, David M. (1984) “Where the Action Is: Critical Legal Studies and Empiricism,” 36 Stanford Law Rev. 575–622.Google Scholar
Tucker, Cynthia (1992) “Colwell's Crime-Fighting Bill Deserves to Pass,” Atlanta J. & Constitution, 22 Jan., p. B2.Google Scholar
Vidal, Gore (1995) Palimpsest: A Memoir. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Weisberg, Robert (1983) “Deregulating Death,” in Kurland, P. B., Casper, G., & Hutchinson, D. J., eds., The Supreme Court Review 1983. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Dick (1991) “McCleskey's Execution Just End to Long Charade,” Atlanta J. & Constitution, 28 Sept., p. A19.Google Scholar
Williams, Dick (1994) “Playing the Parole Shell Game,” Atlanta J. & Constitution, 7 Jan., p. A10.Google Scholar
Yngvesson, Barbara (1989) “Inventing Law in Local Settings: Rethinking Popular Legal Culture,” 98 Yale Law J. 1689–1709.Google Scholar

Cases

California v. Brown, 479 U.S. 538 (1987).Google Scholar
Franklin v. Lynaugh, 487 U.S. 164 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locket v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978).Google Scholar
McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987).Google Scholar
Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U.S. 719 (1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989).Google Scholar
People v. Morse, 388 P.2d 33 (Cal. 1964).Google Scholar
Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154 (1994).Google Scholar
Woodson v North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976).Google Scholar

Statute

Georgia Code Annotated, sec. 17-10-31.1 (WESTLAW 1994).Google Scholar