The Criminal Trial as an Instance of Impure, Imperfect Procedural Justice and the Procedural Rights of the Guilty

Abstract The conventional view holds that the purpose of a criminal trial is to determine if the defendant committed a crime—that is, whether the elements of an offense have been satisfied—and, if so, what the appropriate legal response should be. This view has been criticized for not sufficiently considering the importance of procedural rights for defendants who are factually guilty. Critics argue that the conventional view must acknowledge that, even if the procedure is badly flawed and procedural rights are violated, a trial that convicts such a defendant gets something right. Drawing on Rawls’s taxonomy of procedural justice, this article contends that the criminal trial exemplifies impure, imperfect procedural justice. In such a system, the legitimacy of the verdict cannot be separated from the integrity of the procedure; the justice of the outcome depends on adherence to procedural safeguards. On this basis, I argue that the conventional view is fully compatible with recognizing procedural rights as constitutive requirements of a just trial outcome, regardless of the defendant’s innocence or guilt.