I fin this interesting because the discipline of conversation analysis
was first started as Harvey Sacks, trained first as a lawyer and only
later as a sociologist, became interested in analysing jurors'
discussions, in finding out the "methods" or resources, or "common sense"
reasoning and warrants that jurors use in reaching a "reasonable" verdict.
I don't have the ref. off hand, but could find out later on...
Angel
On Wed, 4 Oct 1995, Teresa M. Meehan wrote:
> Dear xmca-ers,
>
> My voice is not often heard on the list because I really prefer the
> lurking role, but something caught my attention the other night
> (pre-verdict) that I would like consider from a Vygotskian perspective. I was
> listening to a group of legal analysts on CNN who were discussing the
> relatively short time the jury took in diliberating the OJ case. Several
> of the analysts were quite sure that the jury had begun deliberations
> among themselves before they were supposed to. One analyst even suggested
> that if the verdict turned out to be guilty that one of OJ's lawyers (I
> don't remember which one) would probably file some sort of petition with
> the court, try to prove that the jury talked ahead of time, and get the
> case thrown out on those grounds.
>
> Now, here's my humble opinion. It seems to me that what we have hear is
> case that involves a group of people (12 jurors) who were forced into a
> community. They essentially moved in a herd for 9 months. Granted, they
> could not talk about the case during that time, but they could talk. In
> looking at this situtation from a Vygotskian perspective, I am not at all
> surprised that when the time came, the jurors were able to communicate
> swiftly and effectively and reach a consensus.
>
> At the risk of running this case even further into the ground, I would be
> interested in other people's views.
>
> Teresa Meehan
> Doctoral Candidate
> Educational Linguistics
> University of New Mexico
> meehan1 who-is-at unm.edu
>
>