I think Robert Ferguson is right in suggesting that "trials operate as contests that become rituals" and that "the ideal trial moves from contest toward ritual in communal acceptance of the result achieved in court." Non-ideal trials suffer a deficit in one direction or the other. That is, "contest yields to ritual through acceptance of the decorum in procedural fairness, but if a community is genuinely and deeply divided over a trial, the rhythms of contest prevent the more subtle and less absorbing elements of consensus from working themselves out."