Articles
Matthew Clair, "Being a Disadvantaged Criminal Defendant: Mistrust and Resistance in Attorney-Client Interactions" Social Forces.
"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."
Anne Metz, John Monahan, Luke Siebert, and Brandon Garrett, Valid or voodoo? A qualitative study of attorney perceptions of risk assessment in sentencing and plea bargaining. Journal of Community Psychology.
"Prior research largely has explored judicial perceptions of risk assessment in sentencing. Little is known about how other court actors, specifically, prosecutors and defense attorneys, perceive risk assessments in the sentencing process. Here, we report a qualitative study on the use of risk assessment by prosecutors and defense attorneys in Virginia. A prior survey (n = 70) pointed to a statistically significant difference in how prosecutors and defense attorneys view the role of recidivism risk in sentencing. On the basis of the results of this quantitative study, we collected follow‐up qualitative data via interview (n = 30) to explain this unexpected difference. Analysis confirmed the survey findings that prosecutors and defense attorneys differ in their perceptions of risk assessment in sentencing. Results suggest that court actor perceptions vary as a function of professional role in the service of the identified client (the community or the defendant) and their interests. Although perceptions diverged on utility risk assessment in sentencing, both prosecutors and defense attorneys were outspoken in their skepticism of the Nonviolent Risk Assessment instrument that is used to predict recidivism risk in Virginia. This latter finding identifies obstacles that may emerge as jurisdictions adopt a risk‐based approach to sentencing. We conclude with recommendations for addressing these barriers that may provide useful guidance on the implementation process."