[hliyan]

As someone from a third world country with a 'poor' human rights track record, US prosecutor conduct baffles even me. At least in this part of the world you expect to get screwed over by incompetence or corruption, and not the "system".

[Laaw]

That's most likely because you only hear about the extraordinary. The ordinary cases are just that, ordinary, and justice gets served with little fuss.

[hliyan]

You're probably right. Plus I wasn't exactly fair in comparing a population of 300 million to one of 20 million. But where I come from 'going by the book' usually results in the guilty going free, not the innocent getting screwed. IANAL, but I wonder whether this is due to some difference between US law and Roman-Dutch/British law?

[austenallred]

Yes, that's right. What you hear about are the extreme edge cases of society - the places where things fall through the cracks. As a whole the US Justice system is incredibly effective.

That being said, in a population of 300 million edge cases start to add up, and they are significant problems we should figure out how to fix.

[fraserharris]

The function of the Supreme Court is to decide edge cases. Anything they hear is either a question of overlapping laws and/or an area without significant precedents.

[austenallred]

Very, very little makes it to the Supreme Court