ABSTRACT
Cultural background often figures in both criminal and civil proceedings. However, scholars rarely ask how American courts think about culture in these contexts. This chapter reviews a number of cases that raise these and similar issues and considers not only how culture makes its way into judicial proceedings in this regard but how one might best manage its consideration absent a formal cultural defense. In civil cases, too, the issue of cultural understanding has played a role. While culture has frequently been employed as a defense, it should be noted that it has also been used as a prosecutorial tool. The most obvious political and legal difficulty posed by the prospect of a cultural defense is simply one of standardized law applicable to all versus the balkanization of the legal system that might result from allowing different defenses for people of different backgrounds.
