ABSTRACT
Lay people – persons neither legally qualified nor paid for carrying out legal services – play a far larger role in the criminal justice system than is perhaps credited in the media. The vast majority of criminal trials in this country are actually presided over by lay magistrates. For the most serious criminal offences, defendants are tried before a judge and a lay jury of 12 members in the Crown Court. There are over 28,000 lay magistrates in the English legal system and around 200,000 jurors hearing cases every year.
