Wait! Whut?! Judge's instructions to Sandusky jury (unbelieveable)

[KharmaTrain]

23. Instructions = Guidelines

The jury's responsibility here is to address the specific charges and see if a law was broken. Generally the charges are written specifically with the law included in the indictment and are read as part of the instructions. As you say it's not always germaine to the charges at hand...but they don't ignore these instructions, they use them to define the paremeters of the indictment. The problem is when there are two or more laws that contradict one another or the laws are vague when applied to the specific case.

It's natural in cases as controversial as these for people to judge on surface and not at the specific charges in the indictments and the applicable laws. In too many cases when the law isn't clear then a jury can't convict and people interpret this as some nefarious conspiracy. Too often the concepts of innocent until proven guilty and guilty beyond reasonable doubt get lost in the translation.