Being a Disadvantaged Criminal Defendant: Mistrust and Resistance in Attorney-Client Interactions.
Researchers have documented the power of legal officials to administer sanctions, from arrest to court surveillance and incarceration. How do those subject to punishment interact with officials and attempt to subvert their power? Drawing on interviews and ethnographic observations among 63 criminal...
| Publicado en: | Social Forces Vol. 100; no. 1; pp. 194 - 218 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Sep2021
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=151310267&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 151310267 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00377732 SFR jtl: Social Forces issn: 00377732 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2021 vid: 100 iid: 1 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 151310267 10.1093/sf/soaa082 ppf: 194 ppct: 24 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 1.3MB tig: atl: Being a Disadvantaged Criminal Defendant: Mistrust and Resistance in Attorney-Client Interactions. aug: au: Clair, Matthew affil: Stanford University su: Client relations Criminal defendants Defense attorneys Court system Attorney & client Appointed counsel sug: subj: Client relations Criminal defendants Defense attorneys Court system Legal Counsel and Prosecution Attorney & client Appointed counsel ab: Researchers have documented the power of legal officials to administer sanctions, from arrest to court surveillance and incarceration. How do those subject to punishment interact with officials and attempt to subvert their power? Drawing on interviews and ethnographic observations among 63 criminal defendants and 42 legal officials in the Boston-area court system, this article considers how socioeconomically and racially disadvantaged defendants interact with their defense attorneys, and with what consequences. Given racialized and classed constraints, many disadvantaged defendants mistrust their court-appointed lawyers. Their mistrust often results in withdrawal from their lawyers and active efforts to cultivate their own legal knowledge and skills. Defendants use their lay legal expertise to work around and resist the authority of their lawyers. Defense attorneys and judges respond with silencing and coercion, given the unwritten norms and rules of the court. These findings complicate existing accounts of disadvantaged defendants as passive actors and contribute to cultural sociological and relational theories of how people engage with professionals across institutional spaces. Unlike in mainstream institutions such as schools and hospitals where self-advocacy is rewarded in interactions, criminal court officials reject disadvantaged defendants' attempts to advocate for themselves. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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