The “Paper Case”: Evidence and Narrative of a Terrorism Trial in Delhi

Abstract

Through an ethnography of a terrorism trial that followed bomb‐blasts in Delhi in 2008, this article seeks to understand the centrality of files and documentary practices to the production of legal truth. By following key documents regarding the case against one man I call Fahad, I argue that the truth produced in a trial crucially depends a chain of seemingly insignificant certificatory practices‐the signatures, countersignatures, stamps, and seals that appear on documents. What emerges in the account I provide is that juridical truth is less a matter of finding ‘what really happened,’ and more about the competition between narratives that depend on the certificatory correctness of humble sheets of paper.

How to not have to know: Legal technicalities and flagrant criminal offenses in Santiago, Chile

“…While in other cases there are occasions, such as trials, for iteratively and recursively returning to the facts (Scheffer, 2010)—to challenge them; to question them; and to uphold and refute signatures, countersignatures, stamps, and seals, sometimes rather than “facts” (Suresh, 2019)—detentions in flagrante delicto launch a series of practices in which the criminal offense itself—the theft, the assault, the threat—is not discussed. In the case of flagrant criminal offenses in Chile, the treatment of cases allows actors to avoid discussion about the apparent symmetry between the case file and the criminal offense.…”

“…In the logic of record‐taking and its claim to accuracy (Wheeler, 1969), they operate as if they were transparent in regard to what they represent: the case. Through techniques of authorization, authentication and a self‐referential logic of communication (Van Oorschot & Schinkel, 2015), as well as inscription and certification (Suresh, 2019), documents serve as a legal tool that produces facts precisely by claiming that they indeed represent the reality they are supposed to represent. But more than that, they play a role that could be analyzed independently of their content, as their mere existance—their materiality, their asthetics, their signatures (Hetherington, 2008; Hull, 2012; Riles, 2006)—is enough for them to contribute to the production of facts.…”

Gestalt contexture and contested motives: Understanding video evidence in the murder trial of Officer Michael Slager

“…Indeed, the use of KGB statements is limited to occasions where witnesses do change their testimony, as the video statements would be redundant if testimony were consistent. In arriving at a verdict, triers of fact are therefore inevitably tied to, and empowered to weigh, any evidence against the case or narrative (Jenkings, 1997;Rossmath, 2013;Scheffer, 2010;Suresh, 2018) that produces the sense and meaning of evidence. Video evidence does not stand apart from all other evidence as a unique and incontrovertible truth, but rather in a self-same circumstance, gains status as truth when weighed in reflection of all accompanying evidence and the narratives counsel overlay to furnish their arguments.…”

“…Goodwin's (1994) paradigmatic study of the Rodney King assault by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers should disavow readers that video unproblematically re-presents the circumstances of police violence (see also Schwartz, 2009 ; Vertesi, 2015 ). His exposition of the ‘coding schemes’ employed by police training officer/expert witness Charles Duke showed how an ‘expert’ in police practice produced officer intent through the recorded images and still photos.…”

Beastly identification in India

“…Famously a stickler for its rules and processes, the Indian state is obsessed with paperwork (Gupta 2012; Mathur 2016). It is deeply invested in following the letter of the law in a diversity of sites, and it seeks to accomplish this by accumulating material evidence, however perverse or paradoxical the outcomes might be (Ghosh 2019; Mathur 2012; A. Sharma 2013; Suresh 2019). It fetishizes paper, files, and bureaucratic practices to an almost unfathomable extent, outside this particular South Asian context.…”