List of Tables and Figures--Acknowledgements----1. Why emotions in court?--Emotion and rationality--Emotion and law: the research field--Emotion, law and morality--Morality and objectivity--Empathy and emotion management--Power emotions--The Swedish judicial system--Education and the legal professions--Prosecutor and prosecution--Judge and the court--Defence and victim counsels --The trial--Theoretical framework and key concept--Emotion, emotion management, habituation--Social interaction, frame, and ritual--Power and status--Our findings in an international perspective--Structure of the book--2. Background emotions in legal professional life--The emotional profile of defence lawyers--The judge--A formative shame/pride moment--Pride in status and comfort with power--Autonomy--General intellectual dealers--Procedural justice: an increased service orientation--The prosecutor--An issue of personality?--Mediators, translators, purifiers--Committed to justice --Independence and collegiality--Conclusion--3. Organisational Emotion Management--Time as organizing principle--Judges: Lamenting the loss of time--Prosecutors: Constant lack of time--Fear and organisational security work--Court fears--Prosecution fears--Teflon culture: Emotion management as self-discipline--Teflon culture in courts--Teflon culture at the prosecution office--Individualised and collegial emotion management--Conclusion--4. The dramaturgy of court emotions--Setting the scene for the non-emotional ritual--Script and legal terminology--Front-stage performance and emotional communication --Frontstage collaboration to control emotion--The prosecutors perspective: Enacting backstage/front-stage--Situated adaptation to ordinary surprises--Adjusting to the judge: Situated adaptation and emotional toning--Tacit signals--The judges perspective: Backstage preparation and front-stage presentation--Focus and strategic emotion management--Front-stage strategic empathy--Dramaturgical stress --Emotional toning: Toning down and toning up emotional expressions--Conclusions--5. Power and status in court--The autonomous judge: Power issues--Power discomfort--Personalizing or depersonalizing power?--Limitations of power and low status: Negotiating demeanour--Power and status in deliberations--The independent prosecutor: Status negotiations--Prosecutors and the police--Prosecutors and the judge--Prosecutors and lay people--More distance less personalized--Judge and prosecutor: Power and status challenges--Conclusion--6. Objectivity work as situated emotion management --Objectivity and impartiality --Judges: Justice must be seen to be done--Balancing emotional expressions--Aesthetic pleasure, satisfaction, and confidence in legal evaluation--Prosecutors: Partial objectivity--Balancing emotions of commitment and detachment--Aesthetic pleasure, satisfaction, and interest in legal encoding--Objectivity work as collective achievement--Conclusion--7. Concluding discussion--Summary--The emotive-cognitive judicial frame and the self --Refuges of the emotive-cognitive judicial frame--Emotional profiles --Background emotions in the legal system some further reflections----References--Index.

Professional Emotions in Court examines the paramount role of emotions in the legal professions and in the functioning of the democratic judicial system. Based on extensive interview and observation data in Sweden, the authors highlight the silenced background emotions and the tacitly habituated emotion management in the daily work at courts and prosecution offices. Following participants ‘backstage’ – whether at the office or at lunch – in order to observe preparations for and reflections on the performance in court itself, this book sheds light on the emotionality of courtroom interactions, such as professional collaboration, negotiations, and challenges, with the analysis of micro-interactions being situated in the broader structural regime of the legal system – the emotive-cognitive judicial frame – throughout. A demonstration of the false dichotomy between emotion and reason that lies behind the assumption of a judicial system that operates rationally and without emotion, Professional Emotions in Court reveals how this assumption shapes professionals’ perceptions and performance of their work, but hampers emotional reflexivity, and questions whether the judicial system might gain in legitimacy if the role of emotional processes were recognized and reflected upon.

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