> if people continue to acquit convictions because the crime isn't worth punishing, eventually the law should be changed
That idea kinda falls apart on areas that are or were particularly racist. When folks were consistently getting away with all sorts of crimes because of the color of their skin and consistent color of their victim's skin, deriving law from "the general moral opinion of the time" doesn't work.
Oh I'm in no way trying to imply that the legal system is unbiased or could be simply by juries approaching trials differently.
As far as I see it, laws are entirely based on moral opinion and that itself is always going to be biased. The best we could do is have a set of laws that represents the majority moral opinion for any topic codified into law (or don't have the law at all). History is is full of examples where the majority moral opinion was bigoted, unfortunately.
That idea kinda falls apart on areas that are or were particularly racist. When folks were consistently getting away with all sorts of crimes because of the color of their skin and consistent color of their victim's skin, deriving law from "the general moral opinion of the time" doesn't work.