The textbook explanation of juries is that they answer questions of fact and the judge answers questions of law, but that's fairly obviously not what they're do

The textbook explanation of juries is that they answer questions of fact and the judge answers questions of law, but that's fairly obviously not what they're doing in practice. Juries are required to hand down a verdict of guilty or not guilty, which means that they need to understand all the gnarly and difficult parts of the law and how it applies to the facts at hand. You can find an, errm, interesting explanation here: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=299 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=299