Portrait of a Courtroom

Abstract

This research focuses on status and territory within a North Carolina Superior Court. An effort is made to determine which court members are the most dominant and how such dominance is associated with spatial and organizational characteristics of the courtroom. A critique is given of the adversary relationship between the prosecution and the defense, and several inequities in this relationship are outlined. Territorially, the structure of the courtroom is found to be weighted in favor of the prosecution. This partial ethnography reveals several potential fallacies in the courtroom physical and organizational structure and suggests areas for future research.