TY  - BOOK
AU  - Hlavka,Heather R.
AU  - Mulla,Sameena
TI  - Bodies in Evidence: Race, Gender, and Science in Sexual Assault Adjudication 
SN  - 9781479809646
AV  - KF9325 .H53 2021
U1  - 345.73/0253 
PY  - 2021///]
CY  - New York, NY : 
PB  - New York University Press, 
KW  - Discrimination in criminal justice administration
KW  - United States
KW  - Evidence, Criminal
KW  - Forensic sciences
KW  - Sex crimes
KW  - Law and legislation
KW  - Sex discrimination in criminal justice administration
KW  - LAW / Gender & the Law
KW  - bisacsh
KW  - DNA
KW  - Sexual assault
KW  - attorney
KW  - body
KW  - children
KW  - court
KW  - cultural narratives
KW  - defendant
KW  - defense
KW  - evidence
KW  - expert witness
KW  - expertise
KW  - fatherhood
KW  - forensic nurse
KW  - forensic science
KW  - forensics
KW  - gender
KW  - geography
KW  - heteronormativity
KW  - judge
KW  - jury selection
KW  - jury
KW  - justice
KW  - legal ethnography
KW  - method
KW  - police
KW  - prosecution
KW  - race
KW  - rape myths
KW  - sentencing
KW  - testimony
KW  - trial
KW  - victim
N1  - restricted access
N2  - Uncovers how the process of sexual assault adjudication reinforces inequality and becomes a public spectacle of violenceFor 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. Bodies in Evidence draws on observations of over 680 court appearances in Milwaukee County's felony sexual assault courts, including interviews with judges, attorneys, forensic scientists, jurors, sexual assault nurse examiners, and victim advocates. It shows how forensic science helps to propagate public misunderstandings of sexual violence by bestowing an aura of authority to race and gender stereotypes and inequalities. Expert testimony reinforces the idea that sexual assault is physically and emotionally recognizable and always leaves material evidence. The court's reliance on the presence of forensic evidence infuses these very familiar stereotypes and myths about sexual assault with new scientific authority. Powerful, unflinching, and at times heartbreaking, Bodies in Evidence reveals the human cost of sexual assault adjudication, and the social cost we all bear when investing in forms of justice that reproduce inequality and racial injustice
UR  - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9781479809646
UR  - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9781479809646/original
ER  -