Strategies of Justification in the Slip Opinion of a Criminal Case

Abstract

AbstractJustification covers a variety of actions which need to be reasoned in one way or another. The present study scrutinizes justification as an act of giving explanations for the truth in the slip opinion of a selected criminal case. The study aims at investigating justification in the slip opinion of Thompson vs. Clark Et. Al’s criminal case. It also aims at examining the most frequent type of pragmatic strategies. The study incorporates pragmatic strategies to analyze the data qualitatively and quantitatively to achieve the aim. The first strategy is composed of types of reasoning; meanwhile, the second strategy is composed of the structures of inference. The study hypothesizes that deductive reasoning is the most prominent one and the argument from an established rule is the most common type structure of inference that is generally utilized in the slip opinion. The study concludes that deductive reasoning is employed more than other types in this case, meanwhile, the argument from an established rule is employed more than any other arguments in the judicial decision and this is due to its structure which is very common to be applied.Keywords: justification, reasoning, the structure of inference, slip opinion