Prevents those "lets stick it to that big company" decisions too.
Did they actually use those words? As far as I remember they convicted Monsanto mostly on messing with the "independent" studies that should have confirmed their weed killers safety, using various "friends" in key positions to shut down any study that went out of line before it could go anywhere. All documented in an internal email chain discussing various means in great detail.
> shuddered at the lunacy of the nonscientific verdict,
Science went out of the window the moment Monsanto started to actively taint the research through political means.
^1 The results of independent studies are supposed to act as basis for government approval.
Considering how badly they disrespect peoples' time and pandemic safety in scheduling jury duty, most educated, busy, and capable people would want to get out of it, leaving very likely a bunch of less-educated people and anti-vaxxers to be on the jury.
The modern state with mostly impartial judiciary seems pretty good right now, but i imagine that wasn't true in various times and places.
Jury nullification is also an interesting practise (see for example abortion in canada)
And that's before we actually look at the reliability of a jury trial: the letter of the law might claim it's a jury of peers, but that's never the case from the outset, and then lawyers get to demand that the only people who might actually do any reasonable thinking get replaced if they know a reasonable thinking person would conclude their client's guilty.
The system is so messed up, you could write multiple books about it. Which people have.
Don’t mistake SCOTUS justices’ philosophical differences as partiality.