No matter what you thought of the evidence, you would have been under great pressure to agree with the majority of the jury. A relative of mine once sat on a jury hearing a serious felony case that went on for several weeks. Once deliberations began he found that he was in the minority. Most of the jurors didn't want to discuss the complicated case; they just wanted to deliver a verdict as quickly as possible and go home. As I recall, it was a Friday and no one wanted to return on Monday. The majority applied intense pressure and eventually abuse and threats on the handful of holdouts, who after several hours just gave up and agreed. Result: a rapist walked free and my relative removed his name form the voter rolls lest he ever be placed in that kind of situation again.
Don't sing to me the praises of "the system".
I don't have to. Any human system will be flawed, because all human beings are flawed. However, the overwhelming verdict of history is that a system of trial by jury is preferred, by everyone who has a choice, to a system of private judgment by one man, no matter how religiously observant or terribly cute he is.