Legal storytelling in pre-trial investigations: arguing for a wider perspective on forensic evidence
Forensic evidence, and most prominently DNA evidence, is often understood as particularly reliable and “objective.” However, just as other evidence, forensic evidence must be interpreted and thus made meaningful in order to “say” something about a defendant's
culpability. This paper discusses how meaning is created from and around forensic evidence: in criminal trials, evidence is placed in legally meaningful narratives that draw upon well-known cultural scripts and categories and that associate (or disassociate) a defendant with legal categories
and consequences. The paper will demonstrate that these stories are not only told in court as a means of arguing a case, but are also continuously told and re-shaped during pre-trial investigations, as evidence in a case is assembled and assessed. Consequently, I argue that, in order to understand
forensic evidence, it is just as important to pay attention to pre-trial investigations as it is to study forensic laboratories and courtroom interactions.
Keywords: forensic evidence; interpretation through narrative; legal storytelling; pre-trial investigation
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: Department of Thematic Studies - Technology and Social Change, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
Publication date: 01 September 2012
- Editorial Board
- Information for Authors
- Subscribe to this Title
- Ingenta Connect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content