Linus Roos

About Linus Roos

Presentation: Linus Roos (formerly Pentikäinen) started in law school in the autumn of 2007. The following semester Linus began to take courses in rhetoric in addition to law school. This resulted in double degrees (2012 and 2013) and a subsequent employment as a lecturer in rhetoric. During this time Linus taught both in law school and in the rhetoric program. When Linus was accepted as a doctoral student, it was in the subject of language studies (specialization rhetoric) with an interdisciplinary (legal rhetoric) research project. However, due to the direction in which the project developed, Linus switched his major to law at the end of 2021. Linus successfully defended his dissertation thesis on November 29, 2022, and are employed as a Senior Lecturer since august 2023.

Abstract of Linus’ thesis: The Swedish legal system uses lay judges that decide both the verdict and the sentence together with the legally educated judges. Normally the lay judges form a majority at the district court level and sometimes decide the case in a manner that is different than what the legally educated judge would see fit. In this dissertation both the written reasoning of the majority (i.e. the lay judges’ reasoning) and the accompanying dissenting opinion (i.e. the opinion of the legally educated judge) from such cases (so called lay judge decisions) are examined. The purpose is to highlight the underlying conditions on which the various arguments are based. These underlying conditions can be either explicit or unspoken and can either be based on the rules of law or on other things – such as assumptions, values, perspectives, or opinions. To fulfill this purpose a method of analysis has been developed and have been used to study twelve such cases. The method of analysis is empirical and qualitative in nature and combines legal and rhetorical theory and methodology.

The study shows that lay judges, when they overrule the court’s legally educated judge, very rarely have legally valid arguments that support their decision. Instead, the basis of the lay judges’ verdicts is either: that they have decided the case based on personal beliefs, values, or prejudices (their doxa), a consequence of the lay judges having been emotionally affected by some aspect of the case (pathos), or a combination of both (doxa and pathos). The study also shows that instead of using arguments that are supported by established law the lay judges primarily argue for their verdict in a qualitative manner (status qualitatis) or argue through definitions (status definitionis). When the lay judges use qualitative argumentation, they usually highlight specific circumstances from the cases ¬– which they think is important – regardless of whether the circumstances are relevant according to established law or not.

The thesis is available here.

Work in progress: At present Linus are working on an article for an upcoming research lexicon and a methodological article for a research journal.

Teaching: Linus mainly teaches at the law program. Linus mainly teaches legal rhetoric but also in subjects such as procedural and criminal law.