American Legal System Essay

How the American Legal System is Flawed
The American legal system today is filled with corruption and untold truths compared to the European system. To understand how the American legal system is flawed, you will need to understand how both systems work. Both systems have a common law, which means that most laws are decided by legislators, but some laws are based on customs. The United States court system is based on the principle of precedent. For example, if a court has made a ruling on a similar case to the case they are presiding over then he or she has to respect the earlier ruling, with some exemptions (Henderson). This leaves a lot of room for suspicious activities because you only have to slip it past the courts once and it is final.

It should be based that the judges have the ability to look over past cases and voice their opinions on them.
One of the first noticeable principles that differ is that in the United States, every defendant has the right to a trial.

In Germany, there are no trials. There is a panel of judges in all cases which decide the person’s arraignment. Also in criminal cases, only 4 percent of cases reach a jury, instead the prosecutor threatens the defendant with harsh sentences unless he or she pleads guilty to a lesser crime. In doing this, the defendant gives names or information to the legal system of wanted people. In Germany, there is no such thing as plea deals. In comparison, each defendant pays for his or her crime, on only that person’s risk (A subjective comparison of Germany and the United States). Plea deals can be controversial because there can be a lot of backdoor bargaining, which can also be hard to prove in court. In the U.S., the legal system is based on politics and on the will of the highest bidder. If the person is higher in political standings they will use plea bargaining to the fullest extent and try to get that person the lowest sentence or no sentence if possible. The higher the social class the more power they can wield. In Germany, court preceding’s are less based on politics and more on the truth. It could be a great thing that unofficial evidence can be used against the person; it takes out the politics behind the case, which makes the truth come

out.
There are a lot of other laws that differ in the United States and Germany that show how Germany is much better in managing their legal system. In the United States, the police are allowed to pose as anyone such as a young teenager, a guy wanting to buy marijuana etc. to solve a pending case with someone. But in Germany, tactics similar to undercover work are only used in severe cases. Also in the U.S., if evidence was obtained illegally it cannot be used against the person while in Germany it is legal. Another problem with the U.S. court system is that the judges themselves are just in it for the paycheck. They don’t put very much effort into the case and let the lawyers more so do more of the work. If the judges put all of their effort into their cases then they may be solved faster and more justly. The U.S. bases their legal system off of past judicial opinions as authoritative precedent when resolving litigation (Syam). This is not always effective and brings a lot of opinions into the court system instead of the facts of each case. With these opinions the court system is introduced with rulings that are not truthful.
Although the European system is better in most things the US system has some strength. The American legal system is based on a system of federalism, or decentralization. While the national or “federal” government itself possesses significant powers, the individual states retain powers not specifically enumerated as exclusively federal (A Resource and Reference Guide). This lets the government keep power but also gives enough to the states have enough power to keep everything in order.
The United States manages a government that is mostly filled with corruption and wasted money, as the European system manages theirs in a much better fashion that benefits them more than ours does to us. If the U.S reorganized their court system so that the upcoming cases are not based on the previous cases then the system would run much smoother and improve the nation.