A Critical Race Theory Intervention into the Cultural Defense Debate

The cultural defense is an informal term that describes the use of cultural information to mitigate criminal responsibility, often used in conjunction with traditional defense strategies such as provocation or insanity. Arguments for the cultural defense include respecting cultural practices under the liberal narrative that frames the United States as a multicultural and pluralistic society. Advocates of the cultural defense recognize the harmful effects of the false universalism of the law. However, the cultural defense has been criticized as essentialist and harmful as it has been used in high profile cases to justify violence against women of color. The cultural defense superficially prioritizes the needs of marginalized communities by acknowledging the importance of culture in the administration of the criminal law. The rationale behind the cultural defense is politically appealing, but the impacts of the defense are incompatible with the goals of antisubordination, which will be further described by Critical Race Theory. Because the debate surrounding the cultural defense has yet to make significant advances, I argue that Critical Race Theory offers an essential starting point in intervening in the debate, ultimately transforming the realm of legal jurisprudence through its explicit race consciousness and examination of racialized power. In particular, I will examine the concepts of intersectionality and interest convergence which will offer valuable perspective into the cultural defense debate. 3 " Within a society, there are specific places where most of the activities that make up social life within the society simultaneously are represented, contested, and inverted. Courts are such places: like mirrors, they reflect where we are, from a space where we are not. Law the mechanism through which courts carry out this mirroring function, has a curious way of recording a culture's practices of telling and listening to its stories. " (Torres and Milun, 1995).