> Wait, what's the alternative to juries deciding whether or not someone is guilty of murder? Having a single judge do it?

A panel of 3 judges. Or properly randomly selected juries. The US system, with a mix of weirdly selected judges and bizarre jury selection seems to be sub-optimal.

Do you think random Jury's are more skilled than a small panel of judges?

The US uses Juries because as a check on government power. The whole point is jury nullification not factual accuracy.

> The US uses Juries because as a check on government power. The whole point is jury nullification not fact accuracy.

Nullification is not the whole point (but not insignificant), and factual accuracy is important -- but accountability to the citizenry at large (represented by a jury drawn from the citizenry, rather than professional government officers whose accountability to the public is distant at best) for that factual accuracy is just as important.

NM

You do not have a right to forego criminal jury trial in the US. Even if you want to waive jury trial, you may not be allowed to avoid it -- e.g., in the federal system, both the prosecution and court must also agree in order for a trial to a bench trial rather than a jury trial.

Nope it descends from magna carta and UK common law

Trial by jury showed up around then for land disputes. But, it was trial by ordeal that fell off not Judges in the 1200's. Also, we are talking ~500 years after the fact so there is a lot of back and forth involved.

Also interesting that when the Magna Carta was first penned, we had an entirely different idea of who a freeman's peers were.

The alternative is to use several professional judges. In Germany for example a murderer is judged by 3 professional judges and 2 semi-professional juryman.