§ 136.320 Function of jury; jury to receive law as laid down by court

When you serve on a jury in a criminal case, your job is to decide what happened based on the evidence. The judge's job is to explain what the law says. Even though the jury gives a final verdict that touches on both the facts and the law, jurors must follow the law exactly as the judge explains it. Jurors don't get to decide what the law should be or ignore instructions they disagree with.

At the same time, deciding the facts of the case belongs entirely to the jury. This means jurors listen to the evidence and witnesses, then decide what actually happened. The judge doesn't tell the jury what to believe about the facts. Instead, the jury weighs all the evidence presented and reaches its own conclusions, while still applying the law the way the judge has explained it.