Maynard1993
| Maynard1993 | |
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| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Maynard1993 |
| Author(s) | Douglas W. Maynard, John F. Manzo |
| Title | On the sociology of justice: theoretical notes from an actual jury deliberation |
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| Tag(s) | EMCA, Sociology, Justice, Courtroom Interaction, Deliberation |
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| Year | 1993 |
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| Journal | Sociological Theory |
| Volume | 11 |
| Number | 2 |
| Pages | 171–193 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.2307/202141 |
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Abstract
Despite the venerable place that "justice" occupies in social scientific theory and research, little effort has been made to see how members of society themselves define and use the concept when confronted with determining "what has happened" in some social arena, theorizing about why it happened, and deciding what should ensue. We take an ethnomethodological approach to justice, attempting to recover it as a feature of practical activity or a "phenomenon of order." Our analysis involves an actual videotaped jury deliberation. In his classic study of decision making by juries, Garfinkel observed that jurors changed their reliance on commonsense reasoning very little, even though they were instructed to adhere to official and legal criteria for guilt. The vacillation between commonsense reasoning and using official criteria creates a tension; in our data this tension is manifested as the choice between adhering to law and procedural rules and providing "justice." By articulating this tension as a puzzle, several of the jurors prepare the way for using "justice," and then use this concept in formal ways which, along with other discursive patterns and strategies, constitute the deliberation as a structured, concerted activity. We show four stages in the use of the term justice as it is embedded in jurors' practical reasoning.
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