![]() ![]() As a result, the ideology of the people/defendant dichotomy promotes practices that are more punitive than the multifaceted interests of the public dictate. The people/defendant dichotomy in the ideology of contemporary criminal procedure rests on two mistaken premises: first, that prosecutors are and should be the primary representatives of the public in the courtroom and second, that the rules of criminal procedure must limit direct public participation to an illusory, limited subset of the public that is deemed “neutral” and “unbiased.” These conceptions of representation and neutrality distort the criminal legal system’s understanding of who “the People” are, marginalizing and excluding the voices of those members of the community who stand to be harmed by the defendant’s prosecution or incarceration. John Doe.” This Essay argues that this traditional people/defendant dichotomy is critically flawed and then builds on that critique to point the way toward a more realistic, inclusive, and just vision of the role of the public in the criminal process. ![]() ![]() Even the names given to criminal prosecutions often declare this dichotomy, as in jurisdictions such as California, Illinois, Michigan, and New York that caption criminal cases “The People of the State of X v. The rules and practices of criminal procedure assume a clean separation between the interests of the public and the interests of the lone defendant who stands accused. ![]()
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