Using injuries of race in child abuse and homicide trials

Abstract

This paper is based on discourse analysis of trials of African American men accused of murdering their minor children. It demonstrates how the shared background knowledge of police brutality towards racial minorities in the USA was deployed as a defense strategy throughout these trials. Since crimes against children usually involved strong forensic evidence as well as the voluntarily taped confessions by the defendants, it is surprising that the claims of an improperly and forcibly extracted confession would represent an effective legal strategy. Yet the macro‐context of institutional racism in the criminal justice system and the more local context of community relations make the claims of the defendants plausible without putting to question the evidence against them. The questions regarding broader issues of human and legal rights of the defendants as well as the concrete issues of justice for their victims are raised.

Keywords:

• courtroom discourse
• racial injustice
• child homicide
• police brutality

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to thank Adam Green, Tad Krauze, and the members of the Hofstra University Sociology Department research workshop for the comments on the earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1. The cases of parental/caretaker child homicide are very difficult to come by, in spite of the appearance created by the sensationalized media accounts. In a single year of my study, only 12 prosecutable cases of child homicide by a parent were registered in one of the jurisdictions where I conducted my research. These were offenses committed by both men and women. Only half of these offenses went through a full course of the trial; the rest were plea‐bargained.

2. From 1998 to 2001.

3. All the names of the participants have been changed.

4. What Brooks refers to is the confession before a suspect has a chance to speak to an attorney. Note that in all the cases in my sample, where the prosecutors relied on the written and/or videotaped confession, the statements were made ‘voluntarily,’ before the individual was provided with an attorney.

5. Criminally negligent homicide is a lesser charge than manslaughter.