188宝金博页面版

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sentenced to ‘Storification’ 213 Sentenced to “Storification”: A Trial on Legal Narratives Claudia Schwarz Sentenced to ‘Storification’ C. Schwarz 1. Introduction Few people actually have studied law, and even fewer have a profound knowl-edge of how to apply or interpret it. Nevertheless, by and large, people tend to have a fairly good understanding of legality and justice within their respec- tive socio-cultural surroundings. 1 Even though the question of how people actu- ally compose their basic concepts of justice is widely disputed, it can be assumed that any specifically legal understanding is hardly innate. People learn about legal systems, the application of legal principles, and the execution of legal ruling not from theoretical reasoning, the study of legal texts and cases, or their own experience but primarily from stories that tell of justice or injustice, law en-forcement, and people in conflict with the law: accounts told by others, reports encountered in newspapers, TV and radio news, documentaries, the Internet, or stories presented in magazines, books, TV series, films, or other means of com-munication. Legal as well as moral principles are interwoven into the fabric of everyday life, i.e. the narratives that create and constitute the cultural and socio-political context which people are embedded in. The ‘sentence to storification’ is a sentence to becoming part of a community’s shared concerns, a community’s shared values, and – for better or for worse – people’s perception of reality. This article is a trial, in the sense of an attempt or experiment, concerned with the ‘storification’ of law. In particular, three key issues will be addressed: the func-tion and necessity of stories in actual court settings, the fictional and non-fictional representations of legal cases in popular culture, and the repercussion of stories about legal issues on the process of law. It provides a trans-disciplinary, outside perspective on the narratives of U.S. jurisdiction and the dynamics of their adapta-tions and interpretations. It shows the reciprocal effect of legal narratives and em-_________________________ 1 However, what is legal and what is understood to be just are not necessarily the same, as Justice Holmes expressed. Michael Herz points to this dilemma in his discussion of three varia-tions of a well-known story in which Judge Learned Hand purportedly said to Justice Holmes, “Do justice!” whereupon the latter replied, “That is not my job. It is my job to apply the law” (Herz 111f.).