The entire point of a jury trial is to let a group of peers decide whether they were willing to punish a citizen for the crime they were committed of. Laws come down to moral opinion, and jury trials are a way for the public to answer the question of what the general moral opinion of the time is. The jury decides (a) was a law broken, (b) dotthey agree with the law, and (c) are they willing to punish someone for it. This creates case law and ultimately should impact laws on the books - if people continue to acquit convictions because the crime isn't worth punishing, eventually the law should be changed.
Instead lawyers and judges have done an extremely effective job flipping the tables and telling juries their only job is to read a list of laws the court deemed relevant, hear evidence the court deemed important, and decide if the logic between fact and law holds true. Juries are pushed to consider only the statutes in question as written and aren't expected or asked to consider for themselves if the crime is something they even think matters.