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

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hlavka, Heather R., author.

Mulla, Sameena, author.

Series:

NYU scholarship online.

NYU scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sex crimes--Law and legislation--United States.

Sex crimes.

Evidence, Criminal--United States.

Evidence, Criminal.

Sex discrimination in criminal justice administration--United States.

Sex discrimination in criminal justice administration.

Discrimination in criminal justice administration--United States.

Discrimination in criminal justice administration.

Forensic sciences--United States.

Forensic sciences.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (308 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [2021]

Summary:

For 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. This work draws on observations of over 680 court appearances in Milwaukee County's felony sexual assault courts, as well as interviews with judges, attorneys, forensic scientists, jurors, sexual assault nurse examiners, and victim advocates.

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

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on May 7, 2022).

Also issued in print: 2021.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-4798-0964-0

OCLC:

1273975565