ABSTRACT
The dilemma for states which purport to subscribe to the rule of law is how to reconcile the requirements of the law with the demands of justice. Serious criminal cases provide the primary common ground for an analysis of the role of juries in both the English and American criminal justice systems. The conventional view of the jury's role is that it is engaged in a two-stage process. The first stage requires the jurors to determine the facts; in the second stage, the jury applies the law to those facts. The prevention of injustice should take priority accords with values that lie at the heart of the Anglo-American criminal justice system. Although the jury may strive for a Platonic ideal, the justice to which it aspires is not necessarily that which Plato might have contemplated. The proposition that justice may require a verdict contrary to the law assumes a hierarchical relationship between law and justice that warrants closer examination.
