I discuss some of the roles that lay people play in relation to the criminal law, and how that law should figure in their practical reasoning: this will also cast light on the place of criminal law in a democratic republic. The two roles discussed in this paper are those of citizen, and juror. Citizens should be able to respect the law as their law – as a common law; but this must be a critical respect, captured in the idea (...) of ‘law abidance’ as a civic virtue. Jurors are tasked with making normative judgments of guilt or innocence, as part of a process through which those accused of criminal wrongdoing are called to answer to their fellow citizens: they must therefore be able to understand the law, and make it their own – which raises the question of whether jury nullification can be an appropriate response to unjust laws. (shrink)

Those who work with the condemned often come to reject the death penalty not only in individual cases, and not only on the ground that it is poorly implemented. They tend to conclude that the punis...