Automaticity’s Conditions: Vigilance and Inattention during Cross-examination in the Derek Chauvin Trial

• In Event: Research in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis: Interactions in Institutional Settings II

Abstract

Conversation analysts suppose that when we are engage in talk with someone, we have several reasons to attend carefully to their words: those words may demand a response; they set limits on what we can say, relevantly, in the next turn; and they manifest our interlocutor’s understanding of what we ourselves said a moment before, which may be mistaken and require prompt correction. This attentiveness should be particularly important in high-stakes settings, such as trials, yet accordingly to lawyer lore, a witness can be coaxed into offering affirmative answers reflexively, more or less on auto-pilot. I examine the cross-examination of witnesses during the trial of Derek Chauvin, focusing on surprising moments of apparent inattentiveness, when a witness assented to an erroneous statement, or one with problematic implications, seemingly thoughtlessly. I identify the conditions that encourage inattentiveness, and the conditions associated with a switch back to attentiveness, arguing that the ability to switch back and forth is a sign of interactional vigilance. The study revives a decades-old research program on courtroom interaction by drawing on a new data source and engaging with recent research on question-answer sequences.

Author

• David R. Gibson, University of Notre Dame