Because such a conviction would be so much easier to appeal. If you presented the judge with solid evidence and they ignored it anyway, you'd have a solid case

Because such a conviction would be so much easier to appeal. If you presented the judge with solid evidence and they ignored it anyway, you'd have a solid case on appeal. So yes, judges wouldn't be forced to accept your evidence, but their verdicts would be less likely to stand. With juries they are completely free to ignore any and all evidence but because it's a jury, you get 12 people agreeing on something together, it's so much harder to get an appeal because "you were judged fairly by your peers" and all of that nonsense. And of course, lastly - there are many countries with no jury systems or where juries are only used in the worst of crimes, and I have never seen any stat suggesting that these countries are less just than US is.