The interdiscursive construction of irresponsibility as a defence strategy in the Belgian Assize Court

• I examine how irresponsibility is interdiscursively constructed in legal practice.
• Interdiscursive constructions of irresponsibility function as defense strategies.
• Interdiscursive practices imply commonsense interpretations of irresponsibility.
• The ‘placedness’ of commonsense reasoning tunes out inherent social variability.
• This compels a rethinking of legal irresponsibility as a dynamic social construct.

Research on intertextuality in criminal trials postulates a dynamic view of legal text and demonstrates how discourse takes on different meanings at various stages in the legal process. This article examines how these intertextual dynamics affect the negotiation of issues relating to the moral responsibility of defendants in the Belgian Assize Court. Linguistic-ethnographic analysis of the defence counsel’s argumentation in a strangling trial demonstrates how the ambiguity in Belgian criminal law of legal concepts related to moral responsibility opens up enormous potential for negotiation and multiple interpretations of these concepts. This article considers the implications of local constructions of irresponsibility for the assessment of criminal culpability and reflects on the relation between lay and professional input in the adjudication process.