Abstract

From a sociological perspective, and applying the concepts of functionalism, dramaturgy and symbolic interaction, this author analyzes the anatomy of criminal trials as theatre. As competitive performance artists, with the courtroom as there stage, prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys use impression management to manipulate popular culture, judges and juries, and ultimately justice. In the United States, there is a strong historical connection between theatre and criminal trials, such as in the Scopes trial, the Nuremberg trials, the black-listing trials of the 1950s, and the unforgettable 1995 O.J. Simpson trial. Through the drama of the criminal trials, truth, justice and injustice may even be revealed. An irony of the United States’ judicial system is that with all the dramatic allegory, myths, rituals and symbols of due process and justice in these criminal trials, all intended to promote equal justice through an adversarial system between prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys, there is the potential that justice will be marginalized and/or denied for the defendants and the victims who all too often have been degraded and estranged by the criminal trial process.