“It’s in the law”: An ethnographic account of the effects of the introduction of lay participation on judicial bureaucracies in Greater Buenos Aires
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl.1793Keywords:
Jury trials, lay participation, ethnography, criminal justice, ArgentinaAbstract
The province of Buenos Aires (Argentina) introduced its first criminal jury system in 2013. This article discusses the design and initial findings of an ethnographic research project looking at this legal innovation with particular attention to the effects of the introduction of new (lay) actors – and their practices, knowledges, experiences – to the criminal justice system, bringing to the analysis rules, spaces, temporalities and people that are bound by this phenomenon. Focusing on the initial stages of the process – the draw and summoning of prospective jurors and jury selection hearings –, we discuss how material and temporal constraints to fulfill the legal mandate of incorporating lay decision-makers give place to the reshaping and (re)creation of certain roles and positions within the bureaucratic structure. We argue that the jury has become a spectral presence that alters a myriad of existing practices, characters and responsibilities in the criminal justice of Buenos Aires that goes well beyond their verdicts.
Downloads
Metrics
Downloads:
13(S1)_Amietta_Barrera_OSLS 285
XML_13(S1)_Amietta_Barrera_OSLS 32
References
Agar, M., 1980. The Professional Stranger. An Informal Introduction to Ethnography. New York: Academic Press.
Amietta, S., 2016. Governing lay participation: power, knowledge and legal consciousness in the making of Argentina’s juror. Unpublished PhD Thesis. University of Manchester.
Amietta, S., 2019. Everyday Justice at the Courthouse? Scales of Governance of Lay Participation in Argentina’s Criminal Justice. In: S. Brunnegger, ed., Everyday Justice: Law, Ethnography and Context [online]. Cambridge University Press, 161–181. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108763530.010
Amietta, S., 2020. In Ambiguous Times and Spaces: The Everyday Assemblage of Lay Participation to Argentine Courthouses. Social & Legal Studies [online], 30(4), 605–626. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663920957378
Andruet, A., Ferrer, C.F., and Croccia, L., 2007. Jurados populares. Gestión del sistema de Administración de Justicia y su impacto social. Córdoba: Centro de Perfeccionamiento Ricardo Núñez.
Anwar, S., Bayer, P., and Hjalmarsson, R., 2019. Politics in the Courtroom: Political Ideology and Jury Decision Making. Journal of the European Economic Association [online], 17(3), 834–875. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvy013
Asociación Argentina de Juicio por Jurados (AAJJ), 2019. Santa Fe: Diputados dio media sanción de nuevo al juicio por jurados. AAJJ [online], 7 de noviembre. Available at: http://www.juicioporjurados.org/2019/11/santa-fe-diputados-dio-nuevamente-media.html
Baguley, C.M., McKimmie, B.M., and Masser, B.M., 2017. Deconstructing the simplification of jury instructions: How simplifying the features of complexity affects jurors’ application of instructions. Law and Human Behavior [online], 41(3), 284–304. Available at: https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/lhb0000234
Bakrokar, D., and Chizik, N.D., 2016. La evolución del jurado en la Argentina. In: G. Letner and L. Piñeyro, eds., Juicio por jurados y procedimiento penal. Buenos Aires: Jusbaires, 13–24.
Barrera, L., 2012. La Corte Suprema en escena. Una etnografía del mundo judicial. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI.
Barrera, L., 2013. Performing the Court. Public Hearings and the Politics of Judicial Transparency in Argentina. PoLAR: The Political and Legal Anthropology Review [online], 36(2), 326–340. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/plar.12032
Barrera, L., 2018. Gatekeeping: Documents, Legal Knowledge, and Judicial Authority in Contemporary Argentina. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review [online], 41(1), 90–107. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/plar.12242
Barrera, L., and Latorre, S., 2021. Actor Network Theory/Science and Technology Studies: tools for sociolegal analysis. In: M. Valverde et al., eds., The Routledge Handbook of Law and Society [online]. London: Routledge, 9–15. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429293306-1
Bergoglio, M.I., 2019. La participación popular en las decisiones judiciales y la legitimación del poder judicial frente a la opinión pública. In: M.I. Bergoglio, M.E. Gastiazoro and S. Viqueira, eds., En el estrado: La consolidación de las estrategias participativas en la justicia penal. Córdoba: Advocatus.
Bergoglio, M.I., Gastiazoro, M.E., and Viqueira, S., eds, 2019. En el Estrado. La consolidación de las estrategias participativas en la justicia penal. Córdoba: Advocatus.
Binder, A., 2002. La Reforma de la Justicia Penal: entre el corto y el largo plazo. Sistemas Judiciales, 3, 67–72.
Blackstone, W., 2016. Commentaries on the Laws of England. Oxford University Press. (Originally published in 1765).
Braverman, I., et al., 2014. The Expanding Spaces of Law a Timely Legal Geography. Redwood City: Stanford University Press.
Brewer, N., Hupfeld, R., and Schmidt, C., 2000. How Evidence and Social Identity Interact to Affect Jurors’ Judgments. Law in Context, 17(1), 130–47.
Broeder, D., 1959. The University of Chicago Jury Project. Nebraska Law Review, 38(3), 744–760.
Brunnegger, S., and Faulk, K., 2016. A Sense of Justice: Legal Knowledge and Lived Experience in Latin America. Redwood City: Stanford University Press.
Bruno, M., 2015. La población del Conurbano en cifras. In: G. Kessler, ed., Historia de la provincia de Buenos Aires. Tomo VI: El gran Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires: Edhasa/UNIPE, 159–191.
Cavallero, R., and Hendler, E., 1988. Justicia y participación – el juicio por jurados en materia penal. Buenos Aires: Universidad.
Centro de Información Judicial, 2019. La Corte Suprema de Justicia confirmó que es constitucional que las provincias establezcan el juicio por jurados para juzgar los delitos cometidos en su jurisdicción [online]. 2 May. Available at: https://www.cij.gov.ar/nota-34299-La-Corte-Suprema-de-Justicia-confirm--que-es-constitucional-que-las-provincias-establezcan-el-juicio-por-jurados-para-juzgar-los-delitos-cometidos-en-su-jurisdicci-n.html
Crenshaw, K., 1991. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review [online], 43(6), 1241–1299. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039
Das, V., 2004. The Signature of the State: The Paradox of Illegibility. In: V. Das and D. Poole, eds., Anthropology in the Margins of the State. Oxford: James Currey, 225–252.
De Tocqueville, A., (with E. Nolla, ed.), 2018. La democracia en América. Trans.: E. Nolla. Madrid: Trotta. (Originally published in 1839).
Devlin, P., 1956. Trial by jury. London: Stevens & Sons.
Dhamoon, R., 2010. Considerations on Mainstreaming Intersectionality. Political Research Quaterly [online], 64(1), 230–243. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1065912910379227
Diamond, S., and Rose, M., 2005. Real Juries. Annual Review of Law and Social Science [online], 1, 255–84. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.1.041604.120002
Dzur, A., 2012. Punishment, Participatory Democracy and the Jury. New York: Oxford University Press
Ellison, L., and Munro, V., 2010. Getting to (Not) Guilty: Examining Jurors’ Deliberative Processes in, and Beyond the Context of a Mock Rape Trial. Legal Studies [online], 30(1), 74–97. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-121X.2009.00141.x
Fassin, D., 2003. Gobernar por los cuerpos, políticas de reconocimiento hacia los pobres y los inmigrantes en Francia. Cuadernos de Antropología Social, 17, 49–78.
Fernández García, M., and Posas Zubiría, M., 2022. ¿Será justicia? Un trabajo exploratorio de las representaciones discursivas de los jurados civiles en el marco del sistema de juicios por jurados en la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Escuela Interdisciplinaria de Altos Estudios Sociales, Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Unpublished Dissertation in Sociology.
Fleury-Steiner, B., 2002. Narratives of the death sentence: Toward a theory of legal narrativity. Law & Society Review [online], 36(3), 549–576. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/1512162
Fleury-Steiner, B., 2003. Before or Against the Law? Citizens’ Legal Beliefs and Experiences as Death Penalty Jurors. Studies in Law, Politics and Society, 27, 115–36.
Garapon, A., 1997. Bien juger. Essai sur le rituel judiciare. Paris: Odile Jacob.
Garfinkel, H., 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Gargarella, R., 1996. La justicia frente al gobierno. Sobre el carácter contramayoritario del poder judicial. Barcelona: Ariel.
Gargarella, R., 2021. El derecho como una conversación entre iguales. Qué hacer para que las democracias contemporáneas se abran—por fin—al diálogo ciudadano. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI.
Garvey, S.P., 2004. Lifting the Veil on Punishment. Buffalo Criminal Law Review [online], 7(2). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1525/nclr.2004.7.2.443
Guber, R., 2012. La etnografía: Método, campo y reflexividad. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI.
Hannaford-Agor, P., and Hans, V.P., 2003. Nullification at work? A glimpse from the National Center for State Courts study of hung juries. Chicago-Kent Law Review, 78, 1249–77.
Hans, V.P., 2003. Introduction: Lay Participation in Legal Decision Making. Law & Policy [online], 25, 83–92. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1467-9930.2003.00141.x
Hans, V.P., Gastil, J., and Feller, T., 2014. Deliberative Democracy and the American Civil Jury. Journal of empirical legal studies, 11(4), 697–717.
Haraway, D., 1988. Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies [online], 14(3), 575–599. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066
Harfuch, A., 2013. Juicio por jurados en la provincia de Buenos Aires: ley provincial 14.543. Buenos Aires: Ad-Hoc.
Hetherington, K., 2011. Guerrilla Auditors. The Politics of Transparency in Neoliberal Paraguay [online]. Durham: Duke University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822394266
Hoag, C., 2011. Assembling Partial Perspectives: Thoughts on the Anthropology of Bureaucracy. PoLAR: The Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 34(1), 81–94.
Howarth, J., 1994. Deciding to Kill: Revealing the Gender in the Task Handed to Capital Jurors. Wisconsin Law Review, 1345–1424.
Hull, M., 2012. Government of Paper. The Materiality of Bureaucracy in Urban Pakistan [online]. Oakland: University of California Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520951884
Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos (INDEC), 2023. Censo Nacional de Población, Hogares y Viviendas 2022, Resultados definitivos. Indicadores demográficos por sexo y edad [online]. November. Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: INDEC. Available at: https://censo.gob.ar/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/censo2022_indicadores_demograficos-1.pdf
Kovalev, N., 2011. Jury Trials for Violent Hate Crimes in Russia: is Russian Justice only for Ethnic Russians. Chicago-Kent Law Review, 86(2), 669–736.
Latour, B., 2002. La Fabrique Du Droit. Une Ethnographie du Conseil d’État. Paris: Découverte.
Law 14543 of the Legislature of the Province of Buenos Aires (2013) [online]. Available at: https://normas.gba.gob.ar/ar-b/ley/2013/14543/11299
Levi, R., and Valverde, M., 2008. Studying Law by Association: Bruno Latour Goes to the Conseil d'État. Law & Social Inquiry, 33(3), 805–825.
Levine, J., 1992. Juries and politics. Pacific Groves: Brooks/Cole.
Lipsky, M., 1980. Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Lombraña, A., and Di Próspero, C., 2019. El Centro Universitario de San Martín (CUSAM) como proyecto educativo y territorial. Prólogos, Revista de historia, política y sociedad [online], 11, 12–2019. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/11336/159970
Machura, S., 2007. Lay Assessors of German Administrative Courts: Fairness, Power - Distance Orientation, and Deliberation Activity. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies [online], 4(2), 331–363. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-1461.2007.00091.x
Maier, J., 2001. Juicio por jurados en el proceso penal. Buenos Aires: Ad Hoc.
Marder, N. S., 2022. The Power of the Jury. Transforming Citizens into Jurors. Cambridge University Press.
Martín, A.N., 2020. Procesos Penales. Programa de Estudios sobre Poder Judicial. Laboratorio de Estudios sobre Procesos Penales. José C. Paz: EDUNPAZ.
Martínez, M.J., 2020. El juicio por jurados en la provincia de Buenos Aires. Apuntes etnográficos de un campo reciente. Cuestiones Criminales, 3(5/6), 302–321.
Martini, F.M., 2016. El juicio por jurados populares: la experiencia en la provincia de Neuquén. In: G. Leitner and L. Piñeyro, eds., Juicio por jurados y procedimiento penal [online]. Buenos Aires: Jusbaires. Available at: https://doi.org/10.15210/cdl.v0i27.9237
Mathur, N., 2016. Paper Tiger. Law, Bureaucracy and the Developmental State in Himalayan India. Delhi: Cambridge University Press.
Maurer, B., 2005. Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason. Princeton University Press.
Maynard, D., and Manzo, J., 1993. On the Sociology of Justice: Theoretical Notes from an Actual Jury Deliberation. Sociological Theory [online], 11(2), 171–93. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/202141
Mustapic, A.M., 2002. Argentina: la crisis de representación y los partidos políticos. América Latina Hoy [online], 32, 163–183. Available at: https://doi.org/10.14201/alh.2398
Muzzopappa, E., and Villalta, C., 2011. Los documentos como campo. Reflexiones teórico-metodológicas sobre un enfoque etnográfico de archivos y documentos estatales. Revista Colombiana de Antropología [online], 47(1), 13–42. Available at: https://doi.org/10.22380/2539472X.897
Offit, A., 2018. The Jury Is Out: An Ethnographic Study of Lay Participation in the Norwegian Legal System. PoLAR: The Political and Legal Anthropology Review [online], 41(2), 231–246. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/plar.12268
Offit, A., 2021. Race-Conscious Jury Selection. Ohio State Law Journal, 82(2), 201–248.
Offit, A., 2022. The Imagined Juror. How Hypothetical Juries Influence Federal Prosecutors. New York University Press.
Ong, A., and Collier, S., eds., 2005. Global Assamblages. Technology, politics and ethics as anthropological problems. Oxford: Blackwell.
Park, R., 2010. The Globalizing Jury Trial: lessons and insights from Korea. American Journal of Comparative Law [online], 3, 525–582. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5131/ajcl.2009.0049
Poder Judicial de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, 2023. Juicios por jurados: juicios realizados 2015–2022 [online]. 14 July. Available at: https://www.scba.gov.ar/juiciosporjurados/archivos/Ley%2014543%20Juicios%20por%20Jurados.pdf
Porterie, S., and Romano, A., 2018. El poder del jurado. Descubriendo el juicio por jurados en la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires: INECIP.
Porterie, S., Romano, A., and Hans, V., 2017. Proyecto de investigación empírica sobre el juicio por jurados en Neuquén. Informe preliminar. August. Cornell Law School/INECIP.
Riles, A., 2001. The Network Inside Out. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Riles, A., ed., 2006. Documents: Artifacts of Modern Knowledge. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Riles, A., 2011. Collateral Knowledge. Legal Reasoning in the Global Financial Market. University of Chicago Press.
Rockwell, E., 2008. Del campo al texto: dilemas del trabajo etnográfico. In: M.J. Jociles and A. Franzé, eds., ¿Es la escuela el problema? Perspectivas socioantropológicas de etnografía y educación. Madrid: Trotta, 90–111.
Romano, A., Porterie, S., and Hans, V., 2021. El Jurado Neuquino. El comienzo del jurado clásico en la Argentina. Buenos Aires: INECIP.
Sarat, A., 1995. Violence, Representation, and Responsibility in Capital Trials: The View from the Jury. Indiana Law Journal, 70(4), 1103–1135.
Schritzmeyer, A.L.P., 2012. Jogo, ritual e teatro. Um estudo antropológico do Tribunal do Júri. São Paulo: Terceiro Home.
Secretaría de Comunicación, 2019. El Poder Ejecutivo y la Corte de Justicia impulsan la implementación del juicio por jurados populares en la Provincia. Gobierno de la Provincia de Salta [online], 9 September. Available at: https://www.salta.gob.ar/prensa/noticias/el-poder-ejecutivo-y-la-corte-de-justicia-impulsan-la-implementacion-del-juicio-por-jurados-populares-en-la-provincia-66125
Sharma, A., and Gupta, A., 2006. The Anthropology of the State: A Reader. Malden: Blackwell.
Smulovitz, C., 2010. Judicialization in Argentina: Legal Culture or Opportunities and Support Structures? In: J. Couso, A. Huneeus and R. Seider, eds., Cultures of Legalities. Judicialization and Political Activism in Latin America [online]. Cambridge University Press, 234–253. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511730269.010
Sommers, S., 2006. On racial diversity and group decision making: identifying multiple effects of racial composition on jury deliberations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology [online], 90(4), 597–612. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.4.597
Steiner, B., and Argothy, V., 2004. Lethal’ Borders ‘Elucidating Jurors’ Racialized Discipline to Punish in Latino Defendant Death Cases. Punishment & Society [online], 6(1), 67–84. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474504039092
Tarditti, A., and Ferrer, C., 2016. El juicio con jurados populares: a diez años de su aplicación en la provincia de Córdoba. In: A. Tarditti, ed., Centro de Estudios y Proyectos Judiciales: A diez años de los jurados populares en el Poder Judicial de Córdoba. Report. Investigaciones aplicadas en el ámbito del Poder Judicial de Córdoba III. Córdoba: Centro Judicial Ricardo Nuñez, 49–84.
Taylor, S., and Bogdan, R., 2000. Introducción a los métodos cualitativos. Buenos Aires: Paidós.
Thaman, S.C., 2007.The nullification of the Russian jury: lessons for jury-inspired reform in Eurasia and beyond. Cornell International Law Journal [online], 40(2), 355–428. Available at: https://www.law.msu.ru/uploads/files/The%20Nullification%20of%20the%20Russian%20Jury.pdf
Thomas, C., 2010. Are juries fair? Ministry of Justice Research Series [online], 1/10. Available at: https://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/research-and-analysis/moj-research/are-juries-fair-research.pdf
Valverde, M., 2003. Law’s Dream of a Common Knowledge. Princeton University Press.
Valverde, M., 2015. Chronotopes of law: jurisdiction and scale [online]. London: Routledge. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315881614
Vidmar, N., ed., 2000. World Jury Systems. New York: Oxford University Press.
Zander, M., and Henderson, P., 1993. The Crown Court Study, Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, Research Study No. 19. London: HMSO.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Santiago Abel Amietta, Leticia Barrera
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
OSLS strictly respects intellectual property rights and it is our policy that the author retains copyright, and articles are made available under a Creative Commons licence. The Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution No-Derivatives licence is our default licence, further details available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 If this is not acceptable to you, please contact us.
The non-exclusive permission you grant to us includes the rights to disseminate the bibliographic details of the article, including the abstract supplied by you, and to authorise others, including bibliographic databases, indexing and contents alerting services, to copy and communicate these details.
For information on how to share and store your own article at each stage of production from submission to final publication, please read our Self-Archiving and Sharing policy.
The Copyright Notice showing the author and co-authors, and the Creative Commons license will be displayed on the article, and you must agree to this as part of the submission process. Please ensure that all co-authors are properly attributed and that they understand and accept these terms.
