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.

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