[CoastalCoder]

> Juries are generally charged with determining matters of fact; the judge matters of law.

I've always found this deeply troubling. If the law isn't clear enough for 12 jurors to determine if an act was legal, then how is it possibly just to hold the accused liable transgressing it?

I don't see much practical difference between this and ex-post facto laws. In both cases, a person can be convicted for an act that wasn't obviously illegal at the time.

[bpodgursky]

It's not a matter of determining the law; more often than not it's determining who is lying.

Sometimes this is relatively easy ("you left blood with your DNA at the scene") and sometimes hard (you have 3 eyewitnesses, they have 7 people claiming an alibi).

[ummonk]

> Sometimes this is relatively easy ("you left blood with your DNA at the scene")

Not so easy when you realize that DNA labs are shockingly prone to making type II errors.

[Xylakant]

And other problems with sampling: There’s the famous case of the “Phantom von Heilbronn”, where the same DNA was found on 40 unrelated crime scenes in multiple countries. In the end, it was found to belong to a worker in the factory that made the swabs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_of_Heilbronn

[Gibbon1]

There was hopeless alcoholic in San Hoser who was arrested for murdering a businessman in Palo Alto. Turned out the same paramedic that helped take him to the hospital earlier in the day also was called to the scene of the murder. Some how DNA from hopeless drunk guy ended up under the fingernails of the victim.