Evidence of Cooperation in Conversation Topic-Type in a Solicitation to Murder Case

• NCJ Number: 122349
• Author(s): R W Shuy
• Date Published: Unknown
• Length: 36 pages
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper presented at Conference in Language in the Judicial Process, Georgetown University, July 26-28, 1985; to be published in Discourse and Society, V 1, N 2, 1990

Annotation

An analysis of the topics and structures of conversations on three tape recordings made by the government in an actual criminal case shows the importance and usefulness of linguistic analysis to distinguish between statements made by the defendant and those made by a government agent-provocateur.

Abstract

In examining a tape recording or transcript, linguists must determine who initiates a topic, what type of response is made, and the category to which the topic belongs. In the case fictitiously named The State v. Samuel Hazen, the provocateur introduced 27 topics in the first conversation, while the defendant introduced only 5. In addition, the provocateur introduced all the substantive topics that were relevant to the defendant's guilt or innocence. The second and third conversations were similar and showed how the provocateur changed his strategy to try to obtain the desired responses from the defendant. Figures.