Couldn’t the judge intervene if the prosecution introduces falsehoods about the laws that are relevant to a given case? I mean that’s going to happen anyway if the defendant didn’t hire a lawyer, right, or are those cases all highly dubious then?
In the US legal system, the judge is not expected to know every rule, law, and precedent ever set on every topic. And to avoid bias in which ones the judge happens to know (and care about), they generally can’t rule on topics that neither side brings up. They DO rule and make decisions about topics where the two sides disagree, and can point the judge to the correct references on which he can base a decision.
Whilst I appreciate that this article is intended to help accused people, I hasten to comment that I would 100% prefer defendants who are guilty to make self-incriminating statements, vacillate, slip Freudianly and contradict themselves.
You see the problem here, right? You prefer defendants who are guilty to do this. Do you prefer defendants who are innocent ALSO suffer this, while a professional arguer (the prosecutor), who only cares about their success rate, not the actual truth, is browbeating and harassing them?
The underlying difficulty is that the state ALREADY has so much power and assymetric knowledge that without these protections, it’s almost as easy to convict an innocent as a guilty party. I firmly prefer the idea that it’s better to let a lot of guilty go free than to convict almost any non-guilty people.
In addition I, and I assume many other people, would in principle strongly prefer to represent myself in court if I were falsely accused of a serious crime, rather than a stranger who cares not whether I’m innocent and might demean me by his indifferent approach.
I hope you never find yourself in this position. A stranger who cares not about the truth of your innocence but cares somewhat about preventing your conviction (because that’s his job and is a pretty direct scorecard for him professionally) is going to get better outcomes in almost all cases than you will by yourself. The prosecutor and the system ALSO don’t care about your guilt or innocence and are professionally trained and motivated to increase THEIR score in terms of convictions obtained.
In the US legal system, the judge is not expected to know every rule, law, and precedent ever set on every topic. And to avoid bias in which ones the judge happens to know (and care about), they generally can’t rule on topics that neither side brings up. They DO rule and make decisions about topics where the two sides disagree, and can point the judge to the correct references on which he can base a decision.
My understanding is that the French system is much more activist on the part of judges. See Inquisitorial system—Wikipedia vs Adversarial system—Wikipedia.
You see the problem here, right? You prefer defendants who are guilty to do this. Do you prefer defendants who are innocent ALSO suffer this, while a professional arguer (the prosecutor), who only cares about their success rate, not the actual truth, is browbeating and harassing them?
The underlying difficulty is that the state ALREADY has so much power and assymetric knowledge that without these protections, it’s almost as easy to convict an innocent as a guilty party. I firmly prefer the idea that it’s better to let a lot of guilty go free than to convict almost any non-guilty people.
I hope you never find yourself in this position. A stranger who cares not about the truth of your innocence but cares somewhat about preventing your conviction (because that’s his job and is a pretty direct scorecard for him professionally) is going to get better outcomes in almost all cases than you will by yourself. The prosecutor and the system ALSO don’t care about your guilt or innocence and are professionally trained and motivated to increase THEIR score in terms of convictions obtained.