Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T00:46:13.482Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Metaphors judges live by: ‘dirty minds’ and the ‘fear of contamination’ in the new criminal justice system in Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2021

Adriana Alfaro Altamirano Open the ORCID record for Adriana Alfaro Altamirano [Opens in a new window]
Adriana Alfaro Altamirano*
Affiliation:
Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), Mexico
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I take George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's thesis that metaphors shape our reality to approach the judicial imagery of the new criminal justice system in Mexico (in effect since 2016). Based on twenty-nine in-depth interviews with judges and other members of the judiciary, I study what I call the ‘dirty minds’ metaphor, showing its presence in everyday judicial practice and analysing both its cognitive basis as well as its effects in how criminal judges understand their job. I argue that the such a metaphor, together with the ‘fear of contamination’ it raises as a result, is misleading and goes to the detriment of the judicial virtues that should populate the new system. The conclusions I offer are relevant beyond the national context, inter alia, because they concern a far-reaching paradigm of judgment.

Keywords

criminal lawmetaphor and narrativejudicial impartialitycriminal justice reformMexico
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 512 - 528
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramson, J (1994) We the Jury: The Jury System and the Ideal of Democracy. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Andrés Ibañez, P (2009) Imparcialidad Judicial e Independencia Judicial. In Ética judicial: Reflexiones desde jueces para la democracia. Madrid: Fundación Antonio Carretero.Google Scholar
Arendt, H (1982) Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy. Beiner, R (ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benavente, Chorres H (2012) El juez de control en el proceso penal acusatorio y oral. México DF: Flores.Google Scholar
CJF (Consejo de la Judicatura Federal) (2016) Implementación del Nuevo Sistema de Justicia Penal, Informe Final, Junio 2016. Available at: https://www.cjf.gob.mx/reformas/data/documentos/informeFinal.pdf (accessed 11 July 2020).Google Scholar
Del Mar, M (2017) Metaphor in international law: language, imagination and normative inquiry. Nordic Journal of International Law 86, 170–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferreyra, G (2018) Unpacking the Mexican federal judiciary: an inner look to the ethos of the judicial branch. Mexican Law Review 11, 57–83.Google Scholar
Fukurai, H et al. (2009) Is Mexico ready for a jury trial? Comparative analysis of lay justice systems in Mexico, the United States, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Ireland. Mexican Law Review 2, 3–44.Google Scholar
Gama, Leyva R (2015) El endeble compromiso de la Primera Sala con la prueba ilícita. Nexos, 9 December 2015.Google Scholar
García Ramírez, S (2016) La reforma penal constitucional 2007–2008. México: Porrúa.Google Scholar
González-Ocantos, EA (2016) Shifting Legal Visions. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
González Villalobos, PH (2018) Estado de la Reforma Penal en México. Symposium at the National Human Rights Committee (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos), 28 February 2018. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThFzp9iDSx4 (accessed 11 July 2020).Google Scholar
Guillén, López G (2017) La Prueba Ilícita y su Análisis Judicial a la Luz del Proceso Penal Acusatorio: Aspectos doctrinales y legales. Nova Iustitia, Revista Digital de la Reforma Penal 5, no. 19.Google Scholar
Gurnham, D (2016) Law's Metaphors: Interrogating Languages of Law, Justice, and Legitimacy. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hans, VP (2007) Introduction: citizens as legal decision makers: an international perspective. Cornell International Law Journal 40, 303–314.Google Scholar
Johnson, M (1987) The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D and Tversky, A (1979) Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica 47, 263–292.10.2307/1914185CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D, Slovic, P and Tversky, A (1982) Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lacey, N (2016) The metaphor of proportionality. Journal of Law and Society 43, 27–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G (1987) Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G and Johnson, M (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Laveaga, G (2018) Interview by Valentina Fix (author's research assistant), 1 January.Google Scholar
LeBaron, M (2016) Is the blush off the rose: legal education metaphors in a changing world. Journal of Law and Society 43, 144–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
López, Ayllón S (2018) Interview by Valentina Fix (author's research assistant), 2 February.Google Scholar
Magaloni, B (2008) Enforcing autocratic political order and the role of courts: the case of Mexico. In Ginsburg, T and Moustafa, T (eds), Rule by Law: The Politics of Law in Authoritarian Regimes. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Martínez, Cisneros G (2009) El juez de control en México. Revista del Instituto de la Judicatura 27, 173–194.Google Scholar
Massaro, T (1989) Empathy, legal storytelling and the rule of law. Michigan Law Review 87, 2099–2127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
México Evalúa (2019) Hallazgos 2019. Available at: https://www.mexicoevalua.org/hallazgos-2019-seguimiento-y-evaluacion-del-sistema-de-justicia-penal/ (accessed 1 March 2021).Google Scholar
Michelon, C (2013) Practical wisdom in legal decision-making. In Amaya, A and Ho, HL (eds), Law, Virtue and Justice. Oxford: Hart Publishing.Google Scholar
Minow, M (1992) Stripped down like a runner or enriched by experience: bias and impartiality of judges and jurors. William and Mary Law Review 33, 1201–1218.Google Scholar
Morris, SD (2011) Mexico's political culture: the unrule of law and corruption as a form of resistance. Mexican Law Review 3, 327–342.Google Scholar
Moynagh, P (1997) A politics of enlarged mentality: Hannah Arendt, citizenship responsibility, and feminism. Hypatia 12, 27–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nedelsky, J (1997) Embodied diversity and the challenges to law. McGill Law Journal 42, 91–117.Google Scholar
Nedelsky, J (2011a) Law's Relations: A Relational Theory of Self, Autonomy, and Law. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nedelsky, J (2011b) Receptivity and judgement. Ethics & Global Politics 4, 231–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Novoa, M (2018) Interview by author, 5 March.Google Scholar
Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, A (2016) Flesh of the law: material legal metaphors. Journal of Law and Society 43, 45–65.10.1111/j.1467-6478.2016.00740.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitler, R (1968) ‘The fruit of the poisonous tree’ revisited and shepardized. California Law Review 56, 579–651.10.2307/3479264CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rachlinski, J (2008) Heuristics, biases, and philosophy. Tulsa Law Review 43, 865–884.Google Scholar
Resnik, J (1982) Managerial judges. Harvard Law Review 96, 374–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ríos-Figueroa, J (2007) Fragmentation of power and the emergence of an effective judiciary in Mexico, 1994–2002. Latin American Politics and Society 49, 31–57.Google Scholar
Ritchie, DT (2007) The centrality of metaphor in legal analysis and communication: an introduction. Mercer Law Review 58, 839–843.Google Scholar
Rodiles, A (2018) Coalitions of the Willing and International Law: The Interplay between Formality and Informality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Secretaría de Servicios Parlamentarios (2008) Cuaderno de Apoyo que contiene el Proceso Legislativo de la Reforma Constitucional en Materia de Justicia Penal y Seguridad Pública, publicada el 18 de junio de 2008. Available at: www.diputados.gob.mx/sedia/biblio/archivo/SAD-07-08.pdf (accessed 1 March 2021).Google Scholar
Shirk, D (2011) Criminal justice reform in Mexico: an overview. Mexican Law Review 3, 189–228.Google Scholar
Simon-Kerr, JA (2020) Unmasking demeanor. George Washington Law Review 88, 158–174.Google Scholar
Smith, MR (2007) Levels of metaphor in persuasive legal writing. Mercer Law Review 58, 919–947.Google Scholar
Solan, LM (2002) Introduction to cognitive legal studies: categorization and imagination in the mind of law: a conference in celebration of the publication of Steven L. Winter's book, A Clearing in the Forest: Law, Life, and Mind. Brooklyn Law Review 67, 941–948.Google Scholar
Spaulding, NW (2012) The enclosure of justice: courthouse architecture, due process, and the dead metaphor of trial. Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 24, 311–343.Google Scholar
Steinberger, P (2015) The Politics of Objectivity: An Essay on the Foundations of Political Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, C (2005) Moral heuristics. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28, 531–542.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Valadez, Díaz M (2013) El juez mexicano ante el sistema penal acusatorio y oral. México, DF: IIJ UNAM.Google Scholar
Winter, SL (2001) A Clearing in the Forest: Law, Life, and Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
World, Justice Project (2018) La nueva justicia penal en México: Avances palpables y retos persistentes. Available at: https://worldjusticeproject.org/our-work/publications/country-reports/new-criminal-justice-system-mexico (accessed 1 March 2021).Google Scholar
Zwier, PJ and Barney, A (2012) Moving to an oral adversarial system in Mexico: jurisprudential, criminal procedure, evidence law, and trial advocacy implications. Emory International Law Review 26, 193–202.Google Scholar