Folk Knowledge as Legal Action

Death Penalty Judgments and the Tenet of Early Release in a Culture of Mistrust and Punitiveness

Bibliographic Data

ID4084682
AuthorsBenjamin D Steiner, William J Bowers (0000-0003-2255-2116), Austin Sarat
Year1999
Volume33
Issue2
Pages461-505
Publication date1999-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLaw & Society Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0023-9216 • E-ISSN: 1540-5893
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3115171
OpenAlexW2084488274
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited39

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

Action (physics · Criminology · Legal action · Legal culture · Political science · Sociology · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Psychology · Social Psychology

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