[feklar]

The same, by not saying anything to police who question you on the street it can be 'obstruction' if you don't ask for a lawyer first before being silent, unless you are arrested and your right to be silent is given to you. Also in Canada police don't have to stop talking to you if you've requested a lawyer they can still keep you in interrogation trying to get you to talk for as long as they want, which usually means all weekend until you see a judge on Monday morning. http://www.edelsonlaw.ca/news/show/40/8/0000/0

Any informants they place in your cell with you, regardless of you asking for a lawyer may continue to interrogate you as well. Your prison phone calls can also be recorded and used against you, again regardless if you've asked and not seen a lawyer so if you phone your job and make up an excuse why you won't be there on Monday morning, that excuse can be used against you in court. A well known trick is for the police to place you with an informant who offers you a cellphone, because typically you have to call 3-4 people when arrested (family/gf, job, a lawyer) instead of just the one phone call they have to give you (which they don't have to provide until days after you are arrested). This contraband phone will be recorded hoping you say something incriminating, or just hoping you lie so they can prove later you are a "known liar" since most people don't want to tell their employer they've just been arrested and will lie about it.

[pmiller2]

That's even worse than in the US. I'm shocked.

[rayiner]

The procedural protections of the criminal justice system are weaker in many developed countries outside the US. E.g. Italy where you can keep trying someone for murder until you get the result you want. What makes the overall system worse in the US is how militarized the police are, how over the top aggressive prosecutors are, and how long sentences are.

[staticautomatic]

Italy is bananas. A few years ago I accidentally drove a rental car through a ZTL in Rome. Some months later I received a letter in the mail at my home in the U.S. asking me to pay the fine (even though I had already paid it to Avis). What was astonishing was that the ticket said you were allowed to contest it, but if you contested it and the authorities decided against you, the fine would significantly increase.

[tptacek]

According to Pfaff, It's mostly the middle (how aggressive --- and also how poorly allocated --- prosecutors are), and very little the latter (although sentences are clearly too long).

If we're comparing the US criminal justice system to other countries, another more fundamental problem we have is that we simply have more crime. Not "people are getting busted for weed" crime, but property crimes and violent crimes. That fact implicates a much broader spectrum of public policy critiques about the US than how we manage the criminal justice system.