Trial by Jury; Trial by Judge

Juries were originally taken to know something about the relevant events. The modern form of jury trials is a weird hybrid of inherited practices and contemporary political ideals. Like most legal phenomena :-)

That modern juries are inexperienced in criminal matters could be a positive feature. Judges may be jaded by constant exposure to narratives of crime. In wealthy countries, serious crimes are exceptional events. Jurors have reason to pay attention to narratives of such events.

Further, legal experts worry about naive juries being swayed by irrational considerations. This might draw expert attention to cognitive biases, and result in institutional steps to avoid them. Legal experts may be less willing to concede that they themselves are biased. Eliminating juries might mean less expert consideration of hazards to good reasoning in criminal trials.

I think it might be useful to focus on how juries decide cases. For example, juries could be told to hold off on proposing solutions. The jury's group dynamics could be tweaked to promote rational discussion, perhaps by allocating jurors specific roles in the discussion (eg "your job is to tell the group if they're assuming something that might not be true", "your job is to look up information in the transcript and see if we're remembering it correctly").