CONSTRUCTED GUILT

A. D. Masters

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Language, Power, and the Architecture of Criminal Justice

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The criminal justice system does not find guilt. It builds it.

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Alex Applebee

A. D. Masters

Independent Research

March 2026

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Abstract

This thesis examines the mechanisms through which guilt is produced by the criminal justice system. Drawing on semiotics, philosophy of language, critical legal theory, cognitive psychology, and empirical criminology, the analysis proceeds across seven institutional sites: pre-interrogation detention, police interrogation, legislative language, courtroom proceedings, media framing, jury processes, and the specific position of neurodivergent populations.

The analysis documents the following findings:

Legal language does not describe pre-existing facts but constitutes institutional realities through performative speech acts. The verdict "guilty" is not a finding but a constitution.

The behavioural cues that trained investigators and lay observers use to assess credibility operate at chance levels (54.1% accuracy) and are empirically inverted: the behaviours interpreted as indicators of deception are more strongly associated with truthful communication.

Post-event linguistic manipulation alters witness memory in approximately 22% of cases (d = 0.72). Testimony is a product of the interaction between memory and the linguistic environment of questioning.

False confessions occur in 12–30% of documented exonerations. Pre-interrogation detention elevates suggestibility by 80–120% above baseline. The legal concept of voluntariness does not account for these neurobiological effects.

Neurodivergent individuals—including those with autism, FND, PTSD, and CPTSD—present authentically in ways that systematically