Aristedes: have you actually read accounts of 18th and 19th century court proceedings? The jurors got a much fuller dose than in today's proceedings.
dlang: the division between the trying of facts and law is not so clean cut. John Jay, first supreme court chief justice, in an unusual case with the justices actually hearing a case before a jury, in charging the jury (Georgia v. Brailsford, 1794), spoke, "It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision - you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy".