ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 focuses on the drama of the court ritual; how emotions and emotion management are silenced by the entire dramaturgy of the legal setting. We demonstrate how the performance of the different legal roles, nevertheless, relies on skilled empathic engagement in, and management of, the emotions of the lay people in court. The concerted performance of objective justice furthermore requires the professionals to communicate emotions between themselves, both tacitly and openly. When doing it openly, the emotional communication is performed to meet the expectations of lay people in court. In other words, emotions are required to give the impression of authentic performance. Tacitly, the professionals exchange emotions – worry, doubt, assurance, irritation, and contempt – giving cues to and arriving at agreements about how to proceed to secure a smooth court procedure. Background emotion and emotion management are thus essential for the legal professionals to navigate the court drama. The encounter between the purified legal version of a crime and its fuzzy reality promotes a tricky balancing act, requiring skilled emotion management and empathic capabilities. When the legal professionals slip and the two ‘realities’ of the crime clash too hard, professionals experience dramaturgical stress, giving rise to foreground emotions.
