The difficulty of reasoning in criminal adjudication is supposed to provide an opportunity for the application of the legal doctrine in criminal sentencing.The reasonable application of the legal doctrine could not only help to strengthen the reasoning of criminal adjudication,but also facilitate the innovative development of the legal doctrine.However,there are currently dilemmas in the use of the legal doctrine in criminal adjudication,such as not being favored by judges,insufficient necessity and relevance for citation,unclear normative standards for citation,and potential risks such as incomplete argumentation,inconsistent judgments in similar cases,and misplacement of reasoning objects in adjudication reasoning.Therefore,it seems to be necessary to clarify the causes of the dilemmas and the legitimacy of using the legal doctrine in criminal adjudication,and then systematically construct a specific application mechanism.First,the judicial application of the legal doctrine should follow such basic principles as necessity,relevance,and rationality.Second,clarify the conditions,procedures,and methods for the use of the legal doctrine in criminal adjudication.Third,comprehensively expand the communication mechanism between the legal doctrine and criminal adjudication by citing authoritative legal doctrines,drawing on legal commentary mechanisms,innovating the application of legal doctrines,and issuing guiding cases.In the future,the legal doctrine and criminal judicial practice need to further strengthen communication and interaction.The legal doctrine needs to focus more on practical judicial issues and put academic innovation achievements into judicial practice for verification;at the same time,judicial practice also needs to rely more on the argumentation support of the legal doctrine and substantively promote the innovation and development of it.