Pre-verdict Judicial Fact-finding in Criminal Trials with Juries

In criminal trials with a jury, judges have many opportunities to engage in adjudicative fact-finding before the jury retires. English law has no conceptual framework for examining this judicial fact-finding which encompasses two categories of collateral fact (preliminary and underlying fact) and foreign law. A third category of collateral fact (conditional fact) is decided by the jury. The article examines the nature of judicial fact-finding and the history and rationale for this allocation of fact-finding responsibility between judge and jury.