NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF STUDY AND RESEACH

IN LAW, RANCHI

ENGLISH PROJECT

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

Dr. GUNJAN NAME: SHREYANSHI SINGH

SEMESTER: I
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
SECTION : A
ROLL NO. : 1257
 LAW AND NARRATIVE: REVIEW ON PRIMAL FEAR

"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the
multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Narration plays a central role in legal discourse and permits law to be communicated,
adjudicative acts to be justified, and their principles to be explained (Fludernik, 20).
“Narration” in legal discourse most commonly denotes the contest of stories that transpires in
adversarial or, with different actors, in inquisitorial trials. “Adversarial” refers to courtroom
systems in which the prosecution and defense produce evidence that is evaluated during the
course of the trial; in inquisitorial systems, trials take place without juries and judges play a
larger role in determining the proceedings, examining the witnesses, and adjudging cases’
outcomes. On the discourse level, the act of narrating is central to legal proceedings: the facts
of a case are related with varying rhetorical intensity depending on the type of trial and legal
system and the stage of the trial in which the narrational act occurs.

The novel “Primal Fear” tells us about how narration of circumstances in the courtroom can
bring a significant importance in deciding whether one is guilty of a crime or not. The novel
is a American thriller by William Dielhi, published in the year 1992 by the publisher, Villard
also known as Villard Books, it is the first. The story revolves around the two main characters.
First a 19-year-old, stammer Aaron Luke Stampler, an altar boy accused of brutally
murdering the beloved and highly respected Archbishop Rushman of the Catholic Church in
Chicago in the archbishop’s apartment itself and second is of the defense attorney who takes
up Aaron’s case pro bono, Martin Vail, a self-centered individual who has a very elevated
view of himself and is somewhat an arrogant, his idea of the truth is not the same as of a
prudent person, he believes that the only truth that matters is the one he creates in the mind of
those twelve jury members that are going to give verdict. The reason he takes this open and
shut case in which he knows that the accused Aaron is guilty, because he believes this case
will add more to his reputation as he takes up an almost unwinnable case and represent Aaron.
The story revolves around how an attorney, who cares only about winning with cases and
does not bother about whether his client has actually committed the crime or not, will save
the murder accused Aaron in the court.

THE STORY, THE PLOT1

The story is set in 1990’s in the city of Chicago, the windy city and the Lawyer, Martin Vail
is being interviewed by a reporter and at the same dressing up for a fund raiser function he is
going to attend. At the charity function he meets the public prosecutor and the Archbishop of
St. Michaels, the next day as he sitting in a bar with the reporter from the last night to
complete his interview, a news flashes on the television mounted in-front of him in the bar,
an altar boy has murdered the archbishop and is now on the run at rail tracks behind St.
Michael Cathedral and is being chased by the police on foot, at this very moment Martin
decided he is going to take this case and represent Aaron as his defense attorney in the court,
he reaches the jail to have a word with the Aaron for the same and to get his view on the
situation. During the conversation Aaron Stampler narrates about the incident and that how
he saw a shadow of someone leaning over archbishop’s body when he went to returned a
book to archbishop’s private library and that he didn’t killed the archbishop but it was
someone else and at this point he mentions that he ‘lost time’ referring to as in he blacked
out/passed out and when he woke up he was all covered in blood and there were police sirens
everywhere so he panicked and tried to ran away, he opens up about how he was a beggar in
street and one day the Archbishop saw him and took him in, and that he has always been
grateful to the Archbishop for his generosity and he had no reason to kill him. Next day
Martin meets his colleagues at his office, Mr. Goodman, he is a private investigator working
for Martin and there Vail narrates the incident as Aaron has described. Martin assigns Mr.
Goodman job to investigate Aaron’s place and look into his past and run a background check
meanwhile he asks her assistance to get him in touch with a Psychiatrist to run a complete
mental checkup on Aaron and see to the story of him passing out, as he suspects that Aaron
might be suffering from Amnesia (it is a medical condition where a person has deficit in
memory caused by brain damage or Shock, and has a form of memory loss condition and
have difficulty in recalling past incidents)

On the other hand, the powerful state attorney, John Shaughnessy, who was also close friend
of the Archbishop Rushman has assigned this case to Ms. Janet Venable, a Public Prosecutor

1
William Diehl, Primal Fear (1993)
who also happens to be ex-colleague of Martin Vail. Shaughnessy makes it clear to Ms. Janet
that he wants the death penalty for the boy and he wants her to make sure that he gets the
most rigorous punishment. As both the sides, the prosecution and defense starts to unfolding
the case before the first hearing, Martin visits Aaron to prepare him for the first day in
courtroom, Martin makes it clear that he does not want Aaron to speak at all in the courtroom
and only he will speak on his behalf and answer to all the questions, all he wants Aaron to do
is sit there and look innocent as to influence the jury members. Next day in court as the
prosecution begins their side with charging Aaron Stampler with murder in first degree and
the defense request the court for extension to do a complete psychiatric evaluation of their
client before answering to as how their client pleads to these charges and until then he will
exercise his right to remain silent under the fifth Amendment of the constitution of the United
states. While Martin is busy with court proceedings, Mr. Goodman reaches to the place where
Aaron used to live and as he enters Aaron’s room and starts searching, a person jumps on to
him and punches him and then runs away, later when Martin visits Aaron and discusses about
this incident, Stampler suggests that perhaps it was Alex, one of the altar boys, who also
happens to be short tempered, Martin suspects that perhaps it was Alex who could have killed
Archbishop Rushman but Aaron denies to this theory, then Martin asks about a girl Linda,
whose photo Aaron had in his room, Aaron tells that Linda was his girlfriend and she is used
to work for Archbishop Rushman. Meanwhile Martin hires a practicing psychiatrist Dr.
Arrington Molly to evaluate Aaron’s condition, Dr. Molly then meets Aaron and informs him
that all their sessions would be recorded for Martin to watch later on. In their first session Dr.
Molly asks about his past and childhood, Aaron mentions that his father was not a very nice
man and when she asks about these incidents when he just passes out and loses all memory of
the duration between when he passed out and woke up, he responds that he has been having
these sorts of black out since the age of twelve and since he was from countryside where
people don’t consult doctor for such trivial issues, he never had any medication or treatment
for this, later when she asks him his friend Linda, he simply says he does not where she is
and they are not together anymore. In the meantime, Martin meets with Ms. Janet to see if he
can make a deal and go for settlement instead of going for the trial in this case, but she
strongly refutes to this idea and confirms that the prosecution will go for a trial and not do
any sort of settlement. Next day in court Martin objects to showing crime scene photos to the
jury members on the grounds that since they have already stipulated that the crime has indeed
happened at the Archbishop’s mansion, so these pictures have no remaining probative value.
Therefore, the jury members have no need to watch them, but the Judge denies this plea.
When Martin starts looking into Archbishop’s background and finds out he was part of
construction deal in which John Shaughnessy is a principal investor, Martin investigates more
on this matter finds out that a lot of property around owned by the Church, Rushman
Foundation was being sold to demolish the neighbourhood and construct high end condos
over the land but since people objected about this to the Archbishop and the deal was put on
hold, the rich people including John Shaughnessy, who were partner to that deal were now
incurring losses in millions of Dollars. Later Shaughnessy invites Martin for dinner to discuss
over Martin’s investigation on Archbishop Rushman’s finances affairs and warns him that it
won’t be fruitful for him to poke into the eyes of some of the most powerful people of the
city.

As the date for trial comes closer, both the lawyers starts working on their opening statement
and finally on the day in front of jury, Martin starts his remarks with speaking about the
whole truth and how the prosecution does not want people to hear about the disappearance of
other altar boys in the church choir and the big investments that Archbishop made on behalf
of the Roman Catholic Church which resulted in hugs losses to some very powerful people in
the city, and about the twenty death threats that Archbishop received that year neither they
want people to hear about the theory of motive because they don’t have one. Prosecution
comes up with their opening remarks as how Archbishop Rushman was an ideal and great
person and yet the accused Aaron Stampler savagely murdered him in the most brutal way
possible, the prosecution brings up the murder weapon in front of jury mentioning that the
accused repeatedly stabbed Archbishop 78 times with this, then the prosecution call in their
first witnesses, Cook County Forensics Chief Harvey Woodside and Cook County Medical
Examiner Emile Weil, as the prosecution tries to prove that the accused did killed the
Archbishop by various evidences and the detailed testimony of both the witnesses by , the
defense cross-examines both the witnesses and tries to establish that there is ambiguity in
their conclusions derived from the present evidences and forensic report by narrating the
reports, statistics and the circumstantial evidence in such a way that it raises doubts on the
certainty of expert opinions by both the witnesses. Then prosecution calls in Captain Stenner
to put forth his team’s finding, there was a symbol carved into the Archbishop's chest, the
letter and the numbers B32.156 were carved into the Archbishop's chest. The identical
reference was the symbol B32.156 is actually catalog code for a book discovered in a private
reading room located in the church basement, that particular number, the B32 part, refers to a
book, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, on page 156 of that book there was an
underlined passage, “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and
another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true." To
this the interpretation by Captain Stenner was simple the killer thought that his victim was
two-faced, dishonest in some way. Later when Martin asked about this to Aaron he refuted to
doing that and mentioned that he didn’t had exclusive access to Bishop Rushman’s library
and many other people also borrowed book from Bishop Rushman’s library.

In one of the sessions, when Dr. Arrington tries to push Aaron into talking about Linda, all of
sudden Aaron becomes very stressed and appears to become a different person, speaking in a
completely different tone. Dr. Arrington believes that Aaron may have Dissociative Identity
Disorder (or multiple personalities) a diagnosis that Martin initially scoffs off. Meanwhile
Martin and his detective associate Thomas Goodman tracks down Alex and confront him
about Archbishop’s murder, Alex explains that he has nothing to do with Archbishop’s
murder and he was in Aaron’s room only to find out the tape on which Archbishop used to
record intimate private scenes involving Aaron, Linda and Alex. Martin then confronts Aaron
about this and he pushes him so far that the alter ego of Aaron, Roy appears and becomes
aggressive with Martin and with this conversation, Martin fully believes that his client Aaron
is suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder and that he is innocent in case of
Archbishop’s murder, but since he cannot present that tape in courtroom, he sends Mr.
Goodman to discreetly deliver it to Janet’s home because she would have to present this in
the courtroom to prove Aaron’s intent to kill Archbishop. After Janet presents the tape in
front the Court an jury members it becomes pertinent for Vail to prove the mental condition
of his client and since changing plea from not guilty to insanity is not permitted he has to
figure out some other way to present his client’s mental state in front of the court. So, Martin
puts up Dr. Arrington to testify her professional experience with Aaron Stampler in front of
the court after which when Aaron is brought in witness box, Martin tries to again challenge
Aaron and push him so that Roy again snap out but this doesn’t happen but when Janet starts
aggressively cross questioning Aaron about the tape and Linda, Aaron completely losses his
temper and Roy snaps out of him and jumps onto Janet and grabs her neck in anger and starts
shouting at her, the court goes in recess and the Judge declares Aaron to be mentally ill and
incapable of committing murder in his clear senses. After that when Martin goes to meet
Aaron in court jail, in between the conversation he realises that Aaron remembers details of
Roy’s action of grabbing Janet’s neck, which was unusual because Aaron always claimed that
he never had any memory after snapping out, when Vail confronts him about this Aarons
explains he was all along Roy and the identity of Aaron was just his cover.
 NARRATION AND NARRATIVE IN LEGAL DISCOURSE IN CONTEXT OF INDIAN
COURTROOMS

Legal narratives are the subject of law; in common, civil, and mixed legal systems, the re-
construction of what happened to whom or to what is central to a given sequence of events’
being adjudged in juristic terms. Applying an abstract legal norm to a particular case in the
civil law tradition requires that an interpretive process is undertaken that involves recourse to
methods of narrative analysis such as differentiating between the frame of the telling, the
telling, and the told, naming functions of narrative structures, and identifying types of tellers.
(Peter Brooks, 425)

In our Indian context the Court goes a long way to contribute to the narratives through the
discourses about constitutional law, political institutions and federalism that it creates inside
of its own decisions.

 In issuing advisory opinions, the Supreme Court contributes to a narrative of limiting

the authority of the executive to act unilaterally, instead promoting some conception
of what the public wants or the current temperature of society (broadly speaking) on a
particular social issue;

 In issuing advisory opinions, the Supreme Court contributes to a narrative of itself as

the protector of constitutional architecture;

Law takes advantage of the entire range of rhetorical and representational possibilities
available to it as a narrative form (Kim Lane Scheppele, 207). The law does not merely
involve narration—for example, in representing the underlying reality from which judicial or
regulatory decisions emerge. Rather, law is narrative, its coherence dependent upon our
collective understanding of how stories make meaning by connecting characters and events
into histories both factual and fictional (James Boyd White). Further, as a narrative form in
its own right, like the epic or the novel, the law exercises considerable influence not only
over how we read other narrative forms, but also over the stories such forms are capable of
telling Robin Wharton, 3).

CONCLUSION

Narratives plays a compelling role in courtrooms in presenting the case, coherent plot or story
line that addresses the legally significant facts and pressing on the specific matters in front of
the judge that presents client’s case. Just like the in the story of Aaron and Martin Vail in the
Primal Fear, where Vail was successful in narrating his client’s situation to the court and
convince them of his client’s innocence.

Narrative suffuses all legal practice and how much work the narratives produced in and by
the law do in the world. Such an approach also empowers petitioners and litigants by
providing a more complete picture of the discursive process from which the law emerges and
yet of which it remains only a part. It also fosters greater mindfulness and clarity in
legislative and judicial decision-making by creating a broader awareness of how deeply legal
narratives draw upon and how profoundly they influence the creation of a collective
socio-cultural identity.
 REFERNCES

 Fludernik, Monika (2010). “Erzählung aus narratologischer Sicht.” B. Engler (ed.).

Erzählen in den Wissenschaften: Positionen, Probleme, Perspektiven. Fribourg:
Academic Press Fribourg
 Peter Brooks, “Narrative in and of the Law” in James Phelan and Peter J. Rabinowitz,
eds., A Companion to Narrative Theory, (New York, 2008), p. 425.
 James Boyd White, The Legal Imagination: Studies in the Nature of Legal Thought
and Expression (Boston, 1973).
 Kim Lane Scheppele, “Foreword: Telling Stories,” Michigan Law Review 87 (August,
1989)
 Peter Brooks and Paul Gewirtz, eds., Law’s Stories: Narrative and Rhetoric in the
Law (New Haven, 1996).
 Robin Wharton, New Directions in Law and Narrative.