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Campus News
     
Your faculty and staff news since 1965
Special Spotlight Issue:  April 22, 2002

Schuetz takes communication theories from classroom to courtroom

By Laurie Mellas-Ramirez

Janice SchuetzUNM undergrads in Janice Schuetz’s legal communication course are seated in an Albuquerque courtroom this month watching legal eagles maneuver in a capital murder trial.

A UNM communication professor for 23 years, Schuetz says the assignment shifts rhetoric to real life. From jury selection to judge interaction, “studying trials is a great way to show how these communication theories have practical examples,” she says.

An expert in legal, political and religious communication, Schuetz has scrutinized and written about New Mexico’s most infamous trials from Gordon House’s DUI to New Mexico State student Carly Martinez’s brutal murder.

National cases fall under her realm, too. She wrote a book contrasting O.J. Simpson’s criminal and civil trials and recently published a book chapter examining moral reasoning in the feature film Dead Man Walking. She will be studying and writing about Sept. 11-related trials of the “American taliban” and “shoe bomber.”

“The goal is that my research will have practical applications to help litigators improve their communication in the courtroom,” she says. “I’m interested in all kinds of argument as communication. I like to look at films as persuasive text.”

The popularity of Court TV and crime-laden local and national news are proof enough that viewers today are tuned into the criminal justice system.

“People are interested in communication in the courtroom. It’s part of our civic duty to know how our courts are run. The prosecutors and judges – they are paid public officials. We spend a tremendous amount of dollars on court proceedings in this country,” Schuetz says.

Technology has made a significant impact on legal communication. Jurors cradle laptop computers in federal courtrooms and, in the Martinez case, email correspondence sent from the perpetrator to the victim turned out to be “the most damning evidence,” she says.

Schuetz has seen it all in the courtroom, but what tugs most at her heartstrings is the devastation caused to families of victims and perpetrators. Many can now communicate their pain in the courtroom. “Victims rights and the laws that allow victim impact statements are relatively new, yet incredibly important to a trial. What a victim or family member stands up and says can mean the difference between life without parole or the death penalty for the defendant,” she says.

This summer she will give a paper in Amsterdam that looks at victim impact statements from the Timothy McVeigh/Oklahoma City federal building bombing trial.

Another communication evolution is that jurors can now ask questions through the judge and take notes in the jury box. “Some of the system is archaic. Communication can’t be passive. The law is finally catching up with communication theory,” she says.

Her research into political and religious communication has also resulted in numerous publications. Her book due out the end of this month, titled, “Episodes in the Rhetoric of Government-Indian Relations,” concentrates on the persuasive and public strategies of both government and Indian leaders, focusing on the written and oral records of key episodes in history.

All of Schuetz’s research interests carry over to her personal life.

She has worked on several political campaigns as a speechwriter and issue researcher. For the UNM Newman Center she sponsors the student group, organizes the faculty lecture series and fundraises for scholarships. The law pops up in her favorite books, true crime novels.

But she does have diversions.

“My favorite TV show is the Antiques Roadshow. I go to estate sales, the flea market -- and I garden,” she shares.

With husband Andrew Burgess, director of the UNM Religious Studies Program, she enjoys Lobo events, the Seattle Mariners and Minnesota Twins.
Asked why she has stayed in education when folks with her legal communication background serve as $1 million-a-pop jury consultants, she replies, “It’s a good life.”

“What you do for fun you can do for work,” she says. “Where else can you go to a movie and turn it into work? The context, the theories and channels of communication are constantly changing. It’s not something that’s old and done with.”