Abstract
Criminal sanction is composed of law enforcers, law violators and the audience. The study analyzes the process of the creation of the public trial in Meiji period and theorizes the structure of the criminal sanction audience. The process of the opening criminal trial is the process of differentiation in the structure of the audience (observers in court, creators of criminal news, and audiences of criminal news) and in its function (guaranteeing justice of the legal procedure, guaranteeing legitimacy of the judicial system, and mediating the two). The differentiated audience also functions to change itself to the victims in discourse. Therefore, the audience is not only an object of general prevention but also expected to guarantee the legitimacy of law.
