Ethnography and the Value of Documentary and Circumstantial Evidence

As I have learned in the ongoing discussion over Interrogating Ethnography, many ethnographers remain highly skeptical of circumstantial evidence, preferring instead to accept the accounts of their informants without regard to fact-checking against official records and documents.  A recent article in the U.K. publication Times Higher Education addressed this issue, quoting several well known ethnographers.

Patricia Adler, emerita professor at the University of Colorado, told THE that “she is sceptical about the idea of checking subjects’ accounts against official sources when doing so could have practical consequences for those subjects.” She therefore declined to interview a DEA agent during her research on drug dealers (conducted jointly with her husband). “If it was known that we were doing this close-up ethnography,” she explained, “living with our respondents and hanging out with them all the time, then all they had to do was follow us around and know who we were writing about. We thought that was too dangerous.”

Adler’s concern for her subjects was admirable, but of course they could have interviewed the agent after the fieldwork was finished and there was no longer any danger of exposure. Adler herself recognized that they “could have used that [DEA] connection to check if the way that the drug dealers thought the police behaved was actually true,” and it is frankly baffling that they chose to forego it during the period following their research and before publication of the book.

Some ethnographers seem to advocate a radical rejection of nearly all police records, and other public records as well. Jeffrey Ferrell, of Texas Christian University, told THE that he is  “wary of using official accounts as a ‘benchmark,’ given that ‘altered police records, plea deals that encode a different crime than the one (allegedly) committed, police discretion, falsified police accounts, [and] on and on…are pervasive.’”

Ferrell is correct, of course, that police records must be used with much caution. They are definitely subject to fabrication in circumstances where the officers have reason to distort the truth, but that is no reason to reject them across the board. Most police reports, and other government documents, are reasonably accurate, if only because it is easier to tell the truth than to make up a story.  Police shootings, as we know, exemplify the opposite case, in which reports are frequently falsified. We in Chicago have seen in the death of Laquan McDonald, for which Officer Jason Van Dyke is currently on trial for murder.  Nonetheless, many documents, including police reports, are created at a time when no one would anticipate any reason to lie about events. 

I pursued this point via email with Ferrell, who graciously replied. “Of course we shouldn't disregard legal records -- they are indeed records of something -- mostly, I think, records of bureaucratic procedures and police (mis)categorizations of people's lives and conduct -- but as for their usefulness in fact-checking what ethnographers find or hear on the street, I'd say minimal at best.”

But consider the case of Botham Shem Jean, who was shot dead in his own home by Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who lived in the same building.  According to the account Guyger gave to the Dallas police, she had parked her car on the wrong floor of the adjacent garage and mistakenly entered Jean’s apartment, which was directly above hers. Describing Jean “as a large silhouette,” she thought he was a burglar and shot him when he did not comply with her commands.

Jean’s parents understandably reject Guyger’s shaky story. It will take a thorough investigation to get at the truth, in which police records will be important. Guyger’s personnel file, for example, will show whether she has previously been involved in other questionable shootings or uses of force, or whether she has ever been reprimanded for inaccuracies in her own reports. Given the racial implications of the shooting – Jean was black and Guyger is white – it will also be important to find out whether she has ever been the subject of race-based complaints.

Guyger’s statement about the shooting, as found in a police report, is also potentially revealing. Jean’s mother suggested to the New York Times that “Officer Guyger had invoked the term ‘silhouette’ to imply that she did not know Mr. Jean’s race,” explaining “‘She would have been able to see his complexion [and] I think the word silhouette was deliberately used to erase the racial issue.’” You can be sure that the incident report – which captures Guyger’s account at a time before she had the opportunity to think through the implications of her story or consult an adviser – will play a central role in any prosecution, disciplinary action, or civil suit.

Other circumstantial evidence will also shed light on the killing of Botham Jean. According to building neighbors: (1) the hallway lighting is so bright that the inside of Jean’s apartment would have been clearly visible even if his own lights were all off; (2) Jean had a bright red doormat, which would have alerted Guyger that she was at the wrong apartment; and (3) the heavy doors swing shut themselves, meaning that Jean’s door could not have been ajar as Guyger claims. 

If the Jean family is going to get justice – in either criminal court or a civil case – they will definitely employ a combination of documentary and circumstantial evidence to establish the facts. Unlike Prof. Ferrell, they will not be asserting that the value is “minimal at best.”

Comments

[Matt]

A pretty good percentage of criminals (perhaps especially whit-collar criminals, but not only those) who are caught are caught because of records they keep of their crimes - sometimes informal records, like emails, videos, and phone calls, but sometimes more formal ones. (think of the famous scene from The Wire, about "taking notes on a criminal conspiracy". Sometimes, people really do keep notes on their criminal conspiracy!) Why mention this? Well, if people who _know_ they are criminals and who accept it often enough keep documentary evidence of it, why think that people like government officials and bureaucrats, who _do not_ see themselves as involved in criminal activity (even when they are) might not also keep accurate records of it? Of course we shouldn't believe these things naively, but just dismissing them all also seems naive.

[Shawn Boyne]

I'm not sure whether or not there is an accepted practice in the field requiring that the information gleaned from interview subjects be verified. However, in my study of the decision-making practices of German prosecutors, THE GERMAN PROSECUTION SERVICE: GUARDIANS OF THE LAW?, I did not take the word of my subjects at face value. When I began conducting my initial interviews in 2005, some prosecutors claimed that there was no plea bargaining in Germany because there were no provisions in the code or case law at the time allowing the practice. There was nothing published in English at the time that confirmed that plea bargaining was taking place. However, I interviewed dozens of defense attorneys and watched many proceedings and not only heard about the practice, but I saw it in action. When prosecutors told me about their key decisions in certain cases, I asked to see their private office files where all their decisions were inscribed. It dismays me to read that some so-called prominent ethnographers do not believe that it is important to verify the accuracy of information obtained through interviews. Perhaps my background practicing law influenced how I conducted my research in the field, but I never considered one person's oral account to be the "truth."

[Steve L.]

As far as I can tell, there is no accepted practice of verifying information -- some ethnographers do it; others disdain it. I don't have any problem with using unverified second-hand accounts in ethnography, so long as they are identified that way. Too often, such accounts are presented as fact, rather than as stories, rumors, or opinions.

[anon]

You may wish to extend the analysis to economists. Economists are notorious for deeming empirical evidence irrelevant, and, accordingly, often deviate into bizarre theories that have no basis in fact.

However, applying the standards of investigations to determine facts in a legal proceeding to the work of every other field may be overstating your point.

If you are looking for an analogy in the law, this may be similar to our "truth of the matter asserted" exception to the hearsay rule. When "ethnographers ... accept the accounts of their informants without regard to fact-checking against official records and documents" it may be more because they are interested in the fact that the informants so stated, not the truth of the facts asserted.

Perhaps, here, we have a key to the debate in the Kav matter. For many, it is less important that a story can be proved, and more important that the accuser be "treated with respect, allowed to be heard, and believed" without regard to such proof.

[Brett Kavanaugh Macho Macho Man Association of America]

Here is the problem with Ethnographies: They are "forced." A researcher, typically a highly educated, professional individual, inserts themselves into a lower SES or blue collar subculture. ie criminal population, small rural community. It does not work because it is not organic. I can write tremendous stories about the courthouse I haunt where everybody knows me. But if I inserted myself into a court house 10 counties over, who would talk to me? Could I get juicy tidbits and nuggets of information? Nope.

[Monica Eppinger]

I'm glad to see that Shawn Boyne raised an example from her book, The German Prosecution Service: Guardians of the Law. Her work is exemplary not only in its commitment to verification, but also in its demonstration of some kinds of insights that qualitative fieldwork, richly informed by a comparative background, can provide. I highly recommend taking a look.