Lawyers about Mixed Tribunals: Do Croatian Professional Judges, State Attorneys, and Private Attorneys Share the Same View?

In this paper, I examine opinions about mixed tribunals, a form of lay participation used widely in the criminal justice systems across Europe. The distinguishing feature of mixed tribunals is the fact that professional and lay judges decide the guilt and sentence jointly. I explore the differences of opinion among lawyers about mixed tribunals in general and about lay judges in particular. Using the theoretical underpinnings of status characteristics theory, I study the impact of the lawyers' role in the criminal justice system and the type of court/office at which they serve or practice law on their opinion about mixed tribunals. The dataset I analyze in this paper consists of questionnaires filled out by Croatian professional judges, state attorneys, and private attorneys.