Credibility in Court: Communicative Practices in the Camorra Trials

Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics

by Marco Jacquemet

The Camorra trials in Naples involved more than a thousand people charged with belonging to a criminal organization, the Nuova Camorra Organizzata. After some key witnesses turned against their former associates and collaborated with the Justice Department, more than 800 people were convicted, but in the appeal their credibility was destroyed and the majority were acquitted. To investigate this dramatic reversal of the defendants' convictions, Jacquemet combines analysis of talk and power technologies with a reflection on truth and credibility as communicative representations.

340 pages, Hardcover

First published October 17, 1996