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> In the U.S. the state has never been an arbiter of life and death. A jury of peers decide that.

In at least some US states, the jury decides guilt/innocence but the judge determines the sentences for guilty verdicts. So in those cases the jury of peers is certainly not being the arbiter of life and death.

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When I served on a jury (minor drug charge), the judge explicitly told us not to think of sentencing and only to determine innocent or guilty.

Judges in the US have gone completely off the rails.

The constitution puts no limits on the power of a jury to acquit someone and it's absolutely despicable that judges have tried to usurp that authority under that pretext of following the rule of law.

If we want to make it harder for juries to acquit someone, then that should be written in the law; not invented by judges. Jury instructions must follow what the law says; not what judges want it to say.

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