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Courtroom Encounters

An Observation Study of a Lower Criminal Court

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Maureen Mileski
Maureen Mileski*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

This is a study of the criminal trial court as a formal organization. The processing of defendants through court can be seen simply as a task for the courtroom personnel—the cases presenting not only occasions for moral outrage or legal acumen but also presenting problems for the legal bureaucracy as such. From one perspective, defendants are as deviant if they do not conform to the routines of the court as they are if they do not conform to the rules of the state. Like the wider society it supports, the court has a social integrity which can be disrupted. The court processes persons alleged to have been deviant in the larger society. The defendants are then subject to the moral exigencies of the court itself. The discussion treats the court as a business as well as a prime sanctioning center for the outer society. But the control of crime is more than a business; it is an industry. The immediate suppliers of the court—the police—act upon and in turn are conditioned by courtroom configurations. Several features of this police-court interrelation also form a part of this study.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , May 1971 , pp. 473 - 538
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 The Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Donald J. Black offered many helpful suggestions on this and an earlier draft of the paper. His aid and support is gratefully acknowledged. Together we systematically observed courtroom encounters in another city and developed a lengthy observation form to facilitate the collection of data. This form was modified for use in the present study. I also want to extend thanks to Stanton Wheeler, Albert J. Reiss, Jr., John Griffiths, and Abraham Goldstein for comments. A more diffuse form of guidance by Professor Reiss is also acknowledged; from an early point in my graduate career he intermittently extolled the virtues of the observational method. Support from the Russell Sage Foundation allowed me the time to revise this paper.

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