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Thorfinn, I edited my post, and asked a few questions. Ireally ask you look at them.
Look, there is a difference in the "law" as you are discussing it. I would love to put juries in charge of defining whether or not Congress passed an ultra vires law. The commerce clause jurisprudence is so goofy, juries couldn't possibly do worse. But that is "statutory law," which is made specifically to derrogate from the "common law." What about "common law?" Can the jury decide an already-settled legal precedent used for 100's of years is invalid? If so, what "precedent" would the next jury use to determine its decision? Or, would it too just "wing it."
I think the jury acting primarily as fact-finder and the court acting primarily as the law determiner is, with limited exception, a better model.
Now, let's not forget that any "law" must be "applied" to "facts." The jury does perform some of these quasi-legal application functions, and that is fine. In this way, I think you may be seeing things that you interpret as juries deciding the law, when really it is merely applying the law to the facts to determine if the law is applicable in that instance.
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