The whole point of a jury is that it is a check on government power. Before a person can be convicted of a serious crime, a jury of his peers, not just the gove

The whole point of a jury is that it is a check on government power. Before a person can be convicted of a serious crime, a jury of his peers, not just the government, must convict him. Your hypothetical of a jury maliciously convicting even without evidence is a misleading one. In order for a false conviction to take place, someone in the government must have already screwed up: the police who investigate, the prosecutor who brings the charges, the judge or the grand jury who determine the sufficiency of the evidence, the prosecutor who decided to bring the case, the judge who allowed a biased jury to be seated, etc. Also, in most states, the defendant has the right to waive his right to a jury trial, so a defendant who is wrongly and maliciously convicted by a jury chose to be tried by a jury instead of the judge. If a defendant is so unfortunate as to be tried in a place where both the government and his peers on the jury are willing to maliciously break the law to convict him, then no legal system would be able to help him. Trial by jury affords defendants some protection against the government, but it does not guarantee perfect justice all the time.