The Multiple Realities of Legal Objects

Accounting for ‘Ontological Discretion’ in Criminal Courts

Bibliographic Data

ID12176367
AuthorsTyler J King (0000-0002-4627-0730, the University of Toronto’s Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, corresponding author), Mariana Valverde (0000-0002-6885-0138, the University of Toronto’s Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies)
Year2025
Volume50
Issue4
Pages1149-1171
Publication date2025-07-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLaw & Social Inquiry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0897-6546 • E-ISSN: 1747-4469
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/lsi.2025.10088
OpenAlexW4411969274
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited34

Traditional legal scholarship has long focused on the exercise of discretion in all its forms; however, by borrowing from the analytical toolkit of science and technology studies (STS), we begin to take an ‘ontological turn’ into the courtroom by documenting a new tool of judicial discretion invoked by criminal justice adjudicators: what we call ontological discretion. By examining three objects from our own research – sleep, death, and intoxication—we show how their lack of a universal, singular ontology may necessitate that adjudicators use their discretion to either choose a coherent ontology in a given case, or else avoid opining on ‘what things are’ altogether. We therefore start to move beyond those important but now rather mainstream sociolegal inquiries into legal knowledges, instead shifting our focus toward what legal actors say the objects of their various knowledges actually are, as well as the widespread legal effects of the court’s ontological games

Criminal procedure · Discretion · Judicial discretion · Judicial review · Political science · Comparative and International Law Studies · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Law in Society and Culture

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