Title Bodies in evidence : race, gender, and science in sexual assault adjudication / Heather R. Hlavka and Sameena Mulla

Published New York : New York University Press, [2021] ©2021

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Description 1 online resource : illustrations Contents Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction. Imagining and Witnessing Sexual Assault Adjudication -- 1. Common Sense and the Nomos of Sexual Assault: Selecting and Sensitizing Jurors -- 2. Permission to Speak: Testimony and the Spectacle of Suffering -- 3. The Low and the High: Presumption, Power, and Police Expertise -- 4. Nursing Sexual Violence from the Stand: Victimized and Victimizing Bodies -- 5. The Evidence Does Not Speak for Itself: Performing Forensic Expertise -- 6. The Good Father: Masculinity, Fatherhood, and Scenes of Admonishment -- Conclusion: Race, Place, and Subjugation in the Courts -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Authors Summary "Uncovers how the process of sexual assault adjudication reinforces inequality and becomes a public spectacle of violence [f]or victims in sexual assault cases, trials rarely result in justice. Instead, the courts drag defendants, victims, and their friends and family through a confusing and protracted public spectacle. Along the way, forensic scientists, sexual assault nurse examiners, and police officers provide their insight and expertise, shaping the story that emerges for the judge and jury. These expert narratives intersect with the stories of victims, witnesses, and their communities to reproduce our cultural understandings of sexual violence, but too often this process results in reinscribing racial, gendered, and class inequalities. Bodies in Evidence draws on observations of over 680 court appearances in Milwaukee County's felony sexual assault courts, including interviews with judges, attorneys, forensic scientists, jurors, sexual assault nurse examiners, and victim advocates. It shows how forensic science helps to propagate public misunderstandings of sexual violence by bestowing an aura of authority to race and gender stereotypes and inequalities. Expert testimony reinforces the idea that sexual assault is physically and emotionally recognizable and always leaves material evidence. The court's reliance on the presence of forensic evidence infuses these very familiar stereotypes and myths about sexual assault with new scientific authority. Powerful, unflinching, and at times heartbreaking, Bodies in Evidence reveals the human cost of sexual assault adjudication, and the social cost we all bear when investing in forms of justice that reproduce inequality and racial injustice." Analysis DNA Sexual assault attorney body children court cultural narratives defendant defense evidence expert witness expertise fatherhood forensic nurse forensic science forensics gender geography heteronormativity judge jury selection jury justice legal ethnography method police prosecution race rape myths sentencing testimony trial victim Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from PDF title page (ProQuest, viewed on April 14, 2022) Subject Sex crimes -- Law and legislation -- United States Trials (Sex crimes) -- United States Rape -- Law and legislation -- United States Trials (Rape) -- United States Evidence, Criminal -- United States Sex discrimination in criminal justice administration -- United States Discrimination in criminal justice administration -- United States Forensic sciences -- United States LAW / Gender & the Law. Trials (Sex crimes) Trials (Rape) Rape -- Law and legislation Discrimination in criminal justice administration Evidence, Criminal Forensic sciences Sex crimes -- Law and legislation Sex discrimination in criminal justice administration United States Form Electronic book Author Mulla, Sameena, author. ISBN 9781479809646 1479809640 9781479809653 1479809659

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