Balancing power and justice: Gender, race, and class as prosecution and defense resources in trials of crimes against children

In this dissertation, I explore the role of status variables—gender, race and class—and their interplay and interdependence in legal story-construction processes. This is achieved through the critical interpretation of the legal discourses involved in chid homicide and abuse trials. I employ qualitative data gathered from transcripts of trials of the parents accused of these crimes, courtroom observations, and interviews with court personnel.; I present evidence that the social and economic status of the offender is a resource in a repertoire of legal strategies. My findings suggest that men are more likely to use cultural assumptions regarding race and class in their exculpatory narratives, whereas the defense of women is more likely to rely on various categories of gender and parenting. Images of motherhood (but not fatherhood) enter into defendant character-building processes and become relevant to the determination of “guilt” or “innocence” through the determination of the quality of mothering. The construction of a male defendant as a parent is rare and it is tangential to the proceedings; conversely, the construction of a woman as a parent is essential and ubiquitous. Throughout the dissertation, I address the issue of the enmeshed nature of social statuses by presenting evidence regarding how race, class and gender are constituted by one another. The discussion suggests that race, class and gender are not static and uniform statuses, and it is not productive to analyze them as such. I argue that it is more beneficial to conceive of them as resources with many different aspects that can be activated to shift the advantage in a trial.; In addition, I address some ethical and moral issues by parsing out the question of individual versus societal responsibility for acts of parental child abuse and homicide. I argue that understanding of these issues is enhanced by viewing the statuses of individual offenders as resources in criminal trials.