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Bernard S. Jackson, "Not Guilty!", International Journal for the Semiotics of Law X/30 (1997), forthcoming: This paper reviews a debate in Britain regarding the meaning of the "not guilty" verdict, in the light of the view of a leading judge that it ought to be replaced with "not proved". A semiotic analysis is offered of the differences in meaning attributed to the verdict by lawyers and the public. An English cause célêbre, in which a national newspaper named as "murderers" five youths acquitted by the courts, is discussed and compared in some respects with the O.J. Simpson case. The paper concludes with some reflections on the nature of truth in the legal process. e-mail: bsj@legaltheory.demon.co.uk

Bernard S. Jackson, "Envisaging Law", International Journal for the Semiotics of Law VII/21 (1994), 311-334: This paper considers the nature and use of images in justice, rather than particular images of justice. We can distinguish three different types of question regarding the relations between the linguistic and the visual in respect of the legal system: "cultural", "causal", and "physiological" questions. By "cultural", I mean the attitudes expressed within particular cultures (national, professional, etc.) towards particular forms of sense construction: in this context, do they claim some privilege for language or for visual representation? By "causal", I mean the causal relationship between sensory data inputs and the sense actually constructed (within any particular semiotic group): in this context, is there evidence to suggest that visually-constructed images have greater potency in the construction of legal sense than do linguistically-constructed images? By "physiological", I mean those processes within the brain which are activated in the transformation of sensory inputs into perceived sense. I illustrate each of these separate questions, and ponder to some degree their inter-relationship. e-mail: bsj@legaltheory.demon.co.uk

B.S. Jackson, "The Literary Presentation of Multiculturalism in Early Biblical Law", International Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique VIII/23 (1995), 181-206: This paper argues for an integral relationship between law and narrative in the Bible. Two events within that narrative history stand out: the creation of the world (the foundation of universal history) and the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt (the foundation of their particular history). This distinction forms the organising structure of the Decalogue itself. The Decalogue refers explicitly to the exodus (in introducing the "particular" laws) and creation (in introducing the "universal" laws). Moreover, the particular and the universal laws invoke quite different forms of semiosis: the former involve the construction of the Israelites' particular sense of the sacred, through feelings of loyalty and the use of body language, smell, taste, speech and time; the latter consist in action qualified as bad by a cognitive process. The Israelite v. stranger opposition continues to structure the law codes: the "love commandment", for example, is separately stated in Lev. 19 in relation to a "neighbour" and a "stranger". e-mail: bsj@legaltheory.demon.co.uk

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