It all started when doing A levels in a second language
It might be useful for readers who are interested in my work to get to know a bit about the background of my research. I am a German national
who moved to England in the 1990's. Whilst I was doing an A level in Law, in 1999, I
developed an interest in English and Welsh criminal procedure & justice. Regular
visits to the local crown court reinforced my interests. I became especially
interested in the role of the judge in the criminal process and the kind of
people that are processed by the crown court. Trial judges in England differ in
many respects from those in Germany. At the crown court they wear an old
fashioned horsehair wig and a gown that resembles that of a priest. Their role
in the trial is less active than that of their continental kin, and they are
not responsible for the verdict. I also became interested in the people who
were standing trial and being sentenced at the court. At pre-trial and sentencing hearings I could
gather information about the backgrounds of defendants (and those convicted or
self-convicted). Most of them were young men from disadvantaged backgrounds. Many
of them had previously been looked after by the care system or were still in
care, suffered abuse and/or neglect in the past and received psychiatric
or substance misuse treatment. My observations have been confirmed by other research. It is well established in the academic
literature that the majority of people in contact with the criminal justice
system are young, unskilled men who are lacking in social and material resources.
Moreover research on the English and Welsh prison population shows that a high
number of prisoners suffer from serious mental health problems (medically
referred to as disorders) which have been diagnosed before imprisonment.
I noticed that the work of trial judges was not included in unversity lectures
I started a degree in law and criminology in 2000 which was
completed in 2003. During this period I spent some time with legal
professionals working in our local crown court. I sat one week with the resident
judge of the court, work shadowing him. I also did several mini pupillages at
local barrister chambers and became a student member of the Middle Temple. Through
my continuing attendances at the court I learned a lot about crown court
proceedings, defendants and their families, and about victims of crime. I also
learned how judges and lawyers work by observing hearings and talking to them.
However, I found that these aspects of criminal procedure were not covered in
my academic studies. In neither of the subjects I studied, law or criminology,
did we learn anything about crown court proceedings and how the judiciary works
there. In criminology, the only criminal justice institution we were taught
about in any detail, was the police. In the faculty of law we learned mainly
about the written words of the judiciary in the appeal courts. Trial courts and
judges were barely mentioned. But surely the judiciary in the crown court plays
an important part in the processing of criminal cases. I was puzzled by the
omission of their work from the lessons. The University I attended was not the
odd one out. I later learned from a literature review that the work of trial
judges has been very little covered by scholars. According to Hazel Genn
this is also true for the work of trial judges in the civil jurisdiction.
But what are the reasons for this? When I mentioned to one
of my tutors that I was interested in doing a study on criminal trial judges,
he discouraged me. He said that judges in this country have generally been unwilling
to engage with researchers. Similar views have also been stated in some of the
literature. The idea is that judges in general like to keep themselves to
themselves. However, this was not the experience of all researchersnor
was it mine. After completing my law and criminology degree I was able to sit
with another senior trial judge and to work shadow him. During this week all of
the trials listed collapsed for one reason or another. The gaps in the
timetable provided me with the opportunity to have long chats with the judge
during the mornings and to take notes. I learned a lot through these
conversations and it inspired me further to do research on trial judges. My
first research design focused on the ways defendants with mental health
problems are treated by the court (judges). After failing to get into Sussex
University because they could offer no funding for a Phd, I got into Birkbeck
College London. There I won a scholarship for doing the Phd on a part-time
basis. Once my place was secured I talked to the resident judge about my plans.
He linked me to another judge, who has special knowledge on mental health. This
judge allowed me to meet him and to ask him some questions. He also agreed that
I could sit with him in the future when a case involving a defendant with
mental health problems was coming up. From my experiences judges were not
necessarily the problem doing research. But what was it (or still is it) that
put potential researchers off? I learned at a later stage of my studies that
research on the judiciary is effectively controlled by the government and that
my experiences were more unusual and lucky.
Defining my own research on the English and Welsh trial judicary
I started at Birkbeck in 2007, but it took a while until I
was ready to conduct my research. After
the first year at the University there was a change of plan for the focus of my
research. My research design seemed to
be unworkable. It would have been very difficult to gain access to the
psychiatric documents I needed for the research. Another motivation to change
direction came from one of my supervisors. She came to watch a hearing with me
at Lewes Crown Court. At lunch we spoke about my research design. She pointed
out to me that I had a divided focus, one of which was the ‘discretion of trial
judges’. From this day on my research focus was more clearly set on the trial
judiciary. I later finalised it to judicial case management at pre-trial
hearings. It was my intention to do a study based on observation and
interviews. However, it still took a few years until both of my supervisors
allowed me to start my fieldwork in the court. By then I had done an extended
literature review on the topic, research on the history of English and Welsh
trial judges, the political context in which the concept of judicial case
management emerged, and all the law that governs it. I also looked into
comparative studies and theories that emerged from them. Some of these have
later been useful when explaining my empirical findings. In addition I had been
practicing for a number of years to take notes at court hearings. This was a
necessary skill and without it I would have not been able to generate the data
I needed for my study. At the beginning it was quite frustrating because I did
not get the results I wanted. I had to listen, to watch and to write at the
same time which was not easy to master. With patience, I got there in the end. To
satisfy my supervisors that I was ready to go, I finally had to present a
chapter on methodology, justifying my research plans. I also had to pilot my
study, which I did in Worcester Crown Court. But after all of this not everything
worked out to plan. I met a retired judge who showed an interest in my research
and also knew the resident judge well. He rang him at the court and told him
about my research plans. The resident judge replied that it was not as free as
it used to be and like everyone else I now had to apply through a clerk. She
referred me to one of the government bodies to apply to and I left it there. At
this point I was almost giving up on my original plan to do an empirical study
on trial judges. Both of my supervisors, luckily, strongly encouraged me. They
said that the crown court is a public place and I still could gain a lot
through just doing observations.
Finishing my research and completing my thesis
Once I started my field study at Lewes, everything went more
smoothly. My previous note taking practices paid off and I produced 202 hand
written transcripts of Plea and Case Management Hearings. In addition I work
shadowed two barristers and talked to them about their views on judicial case
management. When analysing my data I also referred to some of the chats I had
had earlier with judges I later observed. The data analysis came naturally to
me. I always envisaged working from a rich set of data. The most difficult
things for me were to put all my findings into a logical story and to have one
central argument throughout it. But with sweat and hard concentration I also
worked these things out. I have been sitting on my nest for a long time and the
baby finally hatched. I have recently been awarded with a Phd and there are
plans to publish my work.
No comments:
Post a Comment