Epistemic Justice in Legal Proceedings

Sor Juana fought for recognition that her knowledge and perspective deserved credibility despite her status as a woman and colonized subject. Epistemic justice in criminal law means truly listening to witnesses and defendants whose testimonies are systematically devalued by prejudice. When courts dismiss the accounts of women, racial minorities, the poor, or the incarcerated based on prejudicial assumptions rather than evidence, they commit epistemic injustice. Sor Juana's intellectual resistance insists that knowledge claims deserve evaluation on their merit, not the social position of the claimant. In criminal justice, this demands examining how credibility assessments are made: Are they based on rational criteria or on unconscious bias? Do marginalized defendants and witnesses receive genuine epistemic respect? Reforming jury instructions, expert testimony standards, and judicial questioning to honor epistemic justice means creating space for diverse forms of knowledge and lived experience as legitimate contributions to truth-seeking in legal proceedings.