Metaphors Judges Live By: Lessons from a New Criminal Justice System

• In Event: Poster Session: Normative Political Theory

Abstract

In their study Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson propose that metaphors create and shape our reality, such that it is according to them that we “categorize, understand, and remember” what we experience. In this paper, I take their thesis as a point of departure for approaching the experience of judges in the new criminal justice system in Mexico, officially in effect since 2016. I focus on two metaphors that are present in everyday judicial practice and analyze their respective (and related) effects in how criminal judges understand their job. First, I look at the widespread metaphor that certain information is potentially “contaminating” for the trial judge, and second, I explore a range of metaphorical alternatives regarding the robe they wear in the courtroom (robes as shields, masks, loads, and signs). I trace the “contamination metaphor” back to a misguided, although understandable, appropriation of the “Fruits of the Poisonous Tree” doctrine in American jurisprudence, and argue that the metaphor cointained in such a doctrine encourages the kind of misappropriation that can be found in the Mexican system.
Moreover, I argue that the “contamination metaphor” easily combines with the idea that robes are “shields” or “masks,” fostering an experience of judging that the new system is allegedly intended to eliminate. I show how these metaphors bolster each other to the detriment of the judicial virtues and practices that should populate the new system. The arguments are supported by fieldwork consisting in 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with both federal and local trial judges, conducted in 2018.

Author

• Adriana Alfaro, Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico