The Trial on Trial: Volume 2: Judgment and Calling to Account

Description

What are the aims of a criminal trial? What social functions should it perform? And how is the trial as a political institution linked to other institutions in a democratic polity? What follows if we understand a criminal trial as calling a defendant to answer to a charge of criminal wrongdoing and, if he is judged to be responsible for such wrongdoing, to account for his conduct? A normative theory of the trial, an account of what trials ought to be and of what ends they should serve, must take these central aspects of the trial seriously; but they raise a number of difficult questions. They suggest that the trial should be seen as a communicative process: but what kinds of communication should it involve? What kind of political theory does a communicative conception of the trial require? Can trials ever actually amount to more than the imposition of state power on the defendant? What political role might trials play in conflicts that must deal not simply with issues of individual responsibility but with broader collective wrongs, including wrongs perpetrated by, or in the name of, the state? These are the issues addressed by the essays in this volume. The third volume in this series, in which the four editors of this volume develop their own normative account, will be published in 2007.

Antony Duff is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Stirling. Lindsay Farmer is Professor of Law at the University of Glasgow. Sandra Marshall is Professor of Philosophy in the University of Stirling. Victor Tadros is a Professor of Law at the University of Warwick.

...offers a range of perspectives on an important issue...it encourages the reader to begin to unpick some received wisdoms concerning the assumed rationality and function of the trial process. -- Hannah Quirk * British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 47, No. 6 * The authors took me with them on their exciting quest, and some of the chapters really were exciting. -- Nicola Padfield * The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol 46, No 2 * ...an enjoyable and difficult exercise in legal reasoning... a challenging read and I wholly recommend this series of books... -- Sally Ramage ...a most informative and varied analysis of the criminal trial...presents a huge variety of arguments and ideas on the nature, the theory and reality of the criminal trial. The profound, and in parts highly provocative, articles raise high expectations for the third volume of The Trial on Trial -- Sabine Swoboda * Criminal Law Forum, 18 *