Convicting routines and discrediting exceptions: an ethnographic analysis of judicial decisions and sentencing in a Criminal Court addressing conventional crime and gender-based violence

Abstract

This article presents findings from an ethnographic study conducted within the chambers of a Brazilian criminal court, examining how the criminal justice system produces differentiated responses to so-called “ordinary” crimes and to cases of violence against women. The analysis demonstrates that these distinctions do not stem from individual moral dispositions of judicial actors, but rather from a structural mode of operation shaped by situational forms of rights-based moralities. In ordinary crimes–characterized by repetitive and standardized cases–this logic materializes through proceduralization, in which judicial decision-making is embedded in an automatic bureaucratic apparatus that transforms judgment into the execution of routines, treating accounts produced by state agencies as inherently credible and sufficient. In contrast, cases of violence against women are analytically framed as exceptional cases, whose intelligibility requires contextualization, listening, and expanded interpretation. In such cases, judicial practices reveal a recurrent tendency toward skepticism and disbelief regarding victims’ narratives. The article argues that this asymmetry exposes how bureaucratic routines and moral classifications structure evidentiary assessment and judicial outcomes in the criminal justice system.