Why do juries only judge facts?

Question

In an answer to a question I asked earlier today, someone said "juries only decide the facts while judges apply the law." Why doesn't the law stipulate that juries will do both? It seems like telling jurors to use their own judgment about one thing (facts) while substituting the judge's for their own on another (law), and I'd like to know what the reason is for doing that.

Answer 1

Believe it or not, juries are dumbed down by judges. They don't know their rights and the judges aren't gonna tell them.

If a jury comes to the conclusion that the law is bad, they can ignore it and find the person guilty or innocent accordingly to what the witnesses and testimonies said no matter what the Judge thinks, believes or says.

Answer 2

Most juries don't have extensive knowledge of the law, so all they can responsibly do is just facts AS they SEE them.  That is why nobody is dumb enough to try and out guess a jury.  

Answer 3

Because the LAWYERS run the judicial system.  Someone will probably tell you it is because the jury can't be expected to understand the law.  My personal opinion about that is if the average citizen can't be expected to KNOW the law, they can't be expected to FOLLOW the law.  If that is true, I was entirely justified in not calling the judicial system the justice system.

Answer 4

Juries decide the facts as they believe them to be (they are often wrong) and they apply the law as they are required to do, as charged by the judge.  Juries sometimes ignore the law if they believe the law to be wrong.  The whole purpose of a jury is to decide if someone broke the law.  The defendant is either guilty of breaking the law, innocent of breaking the law or if no decision can be reached the jury is a hung jury.

Answer 5

Supposedly because they don't understand the law as well as a Judge and this is probably true.  Unless the jurors are all Judges or Attorneys, asking the average citizen and thus the average juror to apply the law could be very detrimental.  The juror decides the guilt or innocence of the defendant based on the facts presented.  The Judge decides which questions are okay to ask of witnesses and which are not.  He makes decisions about evidence and how that evidence was collected or obtained, under the law.  The average citizen does not understand the extensive and exhaustive laws regarding search and seizure.  Those laws alone fill volumes and volumes of law books.  So, to ask an average citizen to make decisions based on the law just would not work.  

Answer 6

Juries go by the facts, yes, but also have to look at how the laws are written. I have had jury duty three times in my life and we took into account everything, took notes and in the end it still went by how the laws were written. One person I had was found guilty on five out of six counts he was indicted on. The sixth one was hard due to "one word" used in the charge, we even asked for a dictionary and were denied.

Answer 7

A jury is supposed to be able to understand the facts and use common sense to come up with a verdict, but some would argue with you about that.  They would have to go to law school to understand the law.

Answer 8

some of the jury members don't know  sheep **** from coffee.

Answer 9

In an adversarial system of law; the facts are decided by the jury and matters of law are in the hands of the judge. Juries can and do get it wrong. If they argue with the law and find guilt or innocence for that matter the matter can be contested on appeal.

The French have an inquisitorial system where the magistrate investigates the crime with the assistance of the police and decides both law and fact. It removes the inherent ignorance of juries to matters of law.When on trial the defendant faces a panel of three judges and no jury. Much more efficient and removes some of the melodrama played out by lawyers. To my mind this is a far more unbiased system and does not allow for the emotions of jurors to be played upon.