Judges of the facts

In my first stint as a juror, the judge told us that we were the judges of the facts, but he was the judge of the law – that is, of what particular laws applied to this case. The legal principle of corpus delecti says that before a crime can be charged, it must be established that a crime actually has been committed. For a crime to have been committed, then a specific law must have been broken, and it is the judge’s responsibility to state to the jurors what law applies.