"I'm sorry for what I've done" : the language of courtroom apologies

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Where to find it

Law Library — 2nd Floor Collection (2nd floor)

Call Number
KF9678 .G78 2014
Status
Available

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Summary

This book examines 52 apologetic allocutions produced during federal sentencing hearings. The practice of inviting defendants to make a statement in their own behalf is a long-standing one and it is understood as offering defendants the opportunity to impress a judge or jury with their remorse, which could be a factor in the sentence that is imposed. Defendants raised the topics of the offense, mitigation, future behaviour and the sentence in different ways and this book explores the pros and cons associated with the different strategies that they used. Because there is no way of ascertaining exactly how effective (or ineffective) an individual allocution is, case law, sociolinguistic and historical resources, and judges' final remarks are used to develop hypotheses about defendants' communicative goals as well as what might constitute an ideal defendant stance from a judge's point of view. The corpus is unique because, unlike official transcripts, the transcripts used for this study include paralinguistic features such as hesitations, wavering voice, and crying-while-talking. Among its highlights, the book proposes that although a ritualized apology formula (e.g., "I'm sorry" or "I apologize") would appear to be a good fit for the context of allocution and even appears to be expected, the use of these formulas carries implications in this context that do not serve defendants' communicative goals. I argue that the application of Austin's (1962) performative-constative continuum reveals that offense-related utterances that fall closer to the constative end are more consistent with the discursive constraints on the speech event of allocution. Further, I propose that the ideologies associated with allocution, in particular the belief that allocution functions as a protection for defendants, obscures the ways in which the context constrains what defendants can say and how effectively they can say it.

Contents

  • Acknowledgments p. xi
  • 1 Introduction p. 1
  • 1.0 Framing the Project p. 1
  • 1.1 Analyzing the Data p. 7
  • 1.2 The Structure of This Book p. 8
  • 2 Apologies and Courtroom Apologies p. 11
  • 2.0 Introduction p. 11
  • 2.1 Apologies as Speech Acts p. 11
  • 2.2 Definitions and Assumptions p. 12
  • 2.3 Apologies and the Display of Emotion p. 15
  • 2.4 Patterns of Forms and Contexts: Other Studies and This One p. 19
  • 2.5 Apologies and the Context of Sentencing Hearings p. 22
  • 3 The Context of Federal Sentencing Hearings p. 26
  • 3.0 Introduction p. 26
  • 3.1 The Structure and Functions of Sentencing Hearings p. 26
  • 3.2 Allocution in Practice over the Years p. 32
  • 3.3 Language Ideologies surrounding the Speech of Defendants p. 37
  • 3.4 Sentencing Hearings in Three U.S. District Courtrooms p. 39
  • 3.5 Summing Up p. 43
  • 4 What Defendants Say in Response to Their Offenses p. 46
  • 4.0 Introduction p. 46
  • 4.1 Responding to the Offense by Focusing on It p. 47
  • 4.1.1 Assessments p. 48
  • 4.1.2 Responsibility p. 51
  • 4.1.3 Harm p. 59
  • 4.2 Responding to the Offense by Giving a Personal Response p. 67
  • 4.2.1 Sorry p. 67
  • 4.2.2 Apologize p. 70
  • 4.2.3 Other Feelings p. 74
  • 4.3 Defendants' References to Their Offenses p. 75
  • 4.3.1 Relatively Specific References p. 75
  • 4.3.2 Relatively Vague References p. 76
  • 4.4 Summing Up p. 82
  • 5 Defendants Talk about the Past, the Future, and the Present: Mitigations, Future Behavior, and the Sentence p. 85
  • 5.0 Introduction p. 85
  • 5.1 Mitigation p. 85
  • 5.1.1 Explanations p. 86
  • 5.1.2 Person-Based Mitigations p. 89
  • 5.1.3 Mitigating the Offense p. 97
  • 5.1.4 Mitigation for Family p. 99
  • 5.1.5 Summing Up p. 103
  • 5.2 Future Behavior p. 104
  • 5.2.1 Positive Future p. 104
  • 5.2.2 Redress p. 105
  • 5.2.3 Abstain p. 106
  • 5.2.4 "I Have Changed" p. 107
  • 5.2.5 Summing Up p. 112
  • 5.3 The Sentence p. 113
  • 5.3.1 Sentence Requests p. 113
  • 5.3.2 Sentence Acceptance p. 118
  • 5.3.3 Sentence Criticism p. 119
  • 5.3.4 Summing Up p. 120
  • 6 Broad Features of Defendants' Allocutions p. 122
  • 6.0 Introduction p. 122
  • 6.1 Conversational Styles of Defendants p. 122
  • 6.1.1 Nonstandard and Informal Elements p. 123
  • 6.1.2 Politeness Markers p. 126
  • 6.2 "Just" p. 128
  • 6.3 Paralinguistic Indexes p. 133
  • 6.4 Allocution Patterns p. 138
  • 6.4.1 Frequencies of Code Use p. 138
  • 6.4.2 The Morphology of an Allocution p. 138
  • 6.4.3 Patterns of Use Characteristic of Groups of Defendants p. 142
  • 6.4.4 Allocution Patterns by Courtroom p. 142
  • 6.4.5 Distinctive Patterns of Written Allocutions p. 144
  • 6.5 Summing Up p. 144
  • 7 Conclusions p. 146
  • 7.0 Findings p. 146
  • 7.1 What Apologetic Allocutions Can Tell Us about Apologies More Generally p. 156
  • 7.2 Final Thoughts p. 159
  • Appendix 1 Data Collection and the Defendants p. 161
  • Appendix 2 Coding System p. 164
  • Appendix 3 Transcription Practices and the Corpus of Allocutions p. 169
  • Appendix 4 Display of Allocutions by Coded Categories p. 207
  • Appendix 5 Sentencing Table p. 210
  • Notes p. 211
  • Works Cited p. 228
  • Index p. 237

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