[AnthonyMouse]

> and this is how it should be done - you still get judged by a panel of people who can vote, but they are actually trained in the law

Juries don't decide the law, they decide the facts.

Why would someone who spends their life in a courtroom have a better understanding of the facts of an ordinary person's life than someone who actually lives an ordinary life rather than being insulated from it by the legal system?

[gambiting]

>> they decide the facts.

You can't decide the fact - if you could, it wouldn't be a fact. Or do you mean something else here?

>>Why would someone who spends their life in a courtroom have a better understanding of the facts of an ordinary person's life than someone who actually lives an ordinary life rather than being insulated from it by the legal system?

I mean, that should be really obvious in a case like this, no?

[AnthonyMouse]

> You can't decide the fact - if you could, it wouldn't be a fact. Or do you mean something else here?

It's a distinction between facts and the law.

The judge decides what the law is, e.g. the statute says "knowingly" and someone sent a letter to the company informing them, but the person who read the letter isn't the person who performed the act, so does that mean the company acted knowingly?

The jury decides what the facts are, e.g. the company claims the letter didn't inform them but the sender claims that it did. Both admit the letter existed but neither of them kept a copy of it. The jury decides whose version of the facts is the truth.

> I mean, that should be really obvious in a case like this, no?

Kind of the opposite.

This is one of the problems with "professional" fact finders -- prosecutors get a pretty good idea of what kind of cases they can win and don't bring the ones that they can't. So then any kind of a repeat player keeps seeing people they're likely to find guilty because they're disproportionately more likely to be the ones who come before them, and start to assume guilt, and then carry that into the determination even when someone is innocent. To mitigate that you need fresh eyes.