An enormous responsibility: juror's job

Last night, on the Public Sénat channel, I watched a lengthy replay on a huge task that might fall upon any French citizen: becoming a member of a jury for a major criminal trial. Here's an interview with a French lady, Sarah Lebas, who made a documentary on this subject.

I can well understand that many ordinary citizens might be terrified and driven crazy by this frightening responsibility. The selected citizen knows nothing about the crime in question, the personality and background of the alleged perpetrator nor even the French system of justice. That's exactly how he/she is supposed to be: an ordinary citizen, totally uninformed, with no prejudices brought about by prior knowledge of the crime, the victims or the criminals. But this "ordinary citizen" is going to be asked whether the individual on trial was guilty or not. And, if guilty, how many years must that culprit spend in prison? A truly terrifying task, which might haunt jurors for the rest of their lives. Is there no more "professional" way of dealing with such questions? Surely not. We've got the finest and most time-honored system that can possibly exist: trial by jury. Those words seem to be understandable... up until you take a close look at what they mean at a practical level.