Abstract
In a case in which riot-melee felony charges were brought against five teenage members of an all-black church in southern Arizona, the legal defense team requested a sociological expert witness. This paper presents 1) the nature of the request; 2) the definition of the situation to determine if serving as a sociological expert witness was an appropriate role; 3) excerpts from the recorded testimony, demonstrating the use of symbolic interactionist emergent norm theory, as an explanation for the defendents' behavior; 4) the disposition of the case; 5) the inherent interventionist advocacy role in expert witnessing; and 6) the implications of sociological intervention by means of the sociological expert witness role, long the primary province of psychology and psychiatry.
Recommended Citation
Gordon, Leonard
(1986)
"The Sociological Expert Withness in a Case of Collective Interracial Violence,"
Clinical Sociology Review: Vol. 4:
Iss.
1, Article 12.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/csr/vol4/iss1/12
