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What do you actually know about countries based around roman law legal system? I have attorneys in my family and they routinely sue government for this or that overreach or damages or bad tax ruling etc.
It can also be very important the other way such as with O.J. Simpson and many other cases.
Again, judges have quite different powers also in other countries. Plus there is plenty that corrupt judge can do - for instance he could have used JNOV and to overturn jury. Which can in fact be then used as a defense from corrupt or biased jury - e.g. such as when jury full of some tribe makes mockery of justice.
Yeah, it seems so on paper. But despite that, staggering 99.6% of federal criminal cases end up in conviction, mostly because 97% of people rather plead guilty. In true Kafkaesque manner, the process is the punishment. Once people see what their tyrannical government prepared for them, they rather plead guilty even if innocent. So much freedom.
I know that in most of them, you would easily lose any case that anyone (and especially the government) brings against you for your speech. I never claimed that you couldn't sue the government in other countries. I just said that in most of them, you wouldn't be able to win if they sued you (or charged you) for speech.
The prosecution fucked up in the O.J. Simpson case. I wouldn't expect any jury to return a guilty verdict with how shoddy the police work was.
How many judges have less powers in other countries?
JNOV is a bit limited; in a criminal trial it can only be used to overturn a guilty verdict, and even then the prosecution can appeal it. Now this was a civil case, so JNOV can be used in favor of both parties, but it's such an extraordinarily rare step that it would be scrutinized and almost certainly appealed. I also find it less likely for a jury to be corrupt or biased than a judge.
Or it's because most of those people have a really bad case and the plea deal is genuinely better than going to trial? Surely you don't think that even a significant portion of people charged with federal cases are innocent. I'm not saying innocent people can't be charged or plead guilty, or that it isn't a problem worth worrying about, but you seem to be exaggerating the scale to which it happens.
This may be the case, however it is not specific to common vs roman law. You have common law countries like UK or Australia which are significantly easier to misuse. For instance in case of defamation the US has apparently strict standard of proof of malice where burden of proof is on plaintiff. In Australia the burden of proof is on defendant who must prove that what he said was true and they are much more tyrannical when it comes to government officials successfully suing private citizens despite having common law and jury system.
You maybe know, that appeal is an institution also in EU, with extra layer of EU courts, especially European Court of Human Rights. The problem of course is if the whole system is corrupt especially in some highly politicized context. So yeah, the appeals are good way to disrupt local incest where police, prosecutor, judge and even attorneys are in kahoots in some scheme of smalltown mafia. However sometimes this mafia system is too powerful and they basically get protection. For some examples in US just look at "learing center" fraud in Minnesota or well known system of let's say Eastern District of Texas, which is hotbed of what is basically patent troll homebase where they freely extort rest of the world probably in exchange to some kickbacks. Jury does not care if they decide on some shit related to distant corporations, they know that if they rule in favor of patent troll they will get money for school or something.
Okay, so US federal government probably employs some CIA precrime unit akin to Minority Report if only one out of 200 prosecuted people is actually innocent. Amazing investigative competence. And now some other bedtime story.
My point is that both systems have pros and cons and they are much more complex. There is not single "EU law" as there is not single common law - see the difference between US or Australia. As people say, shit is complicated.
You seem to be misunderstanding what I am comparing. I am not comparing common law and Roman law. I am comparing America to the rest of the world. Freedom of speech is uniquely an American right that citizens in other countries don't really have.
I'm not even saying America is better in every single way. I'm just saying that America is better when it comes to being able to criticize whatever, whoever, and whenever you want, especially when that criticism is directed towards the government, and especially when the government has unambiguously wronged you. I'm saying free speech is one thing that America (and only America) got right, and this case is a good example of why.
Do you have any actual reasons to doubt the statistics, or is this just vague non-specific irrefutable hand-wavey skepticism?
You were arguing for "jury trials", not that USA is best, but fair enough.
I think this may be the case, it seems that US system as with many systems with jury are uniquely tribal. Jury can be played emotionally and it of course favors citizen vs government as well as poor guy vs rich guy etc. I am not sure if this is justice, but whatever. However I would not be that sure when it comes to free speech. USA also has one thing going against it, which is very workaholic culture. I am EU guy and I worked with and for US corporations and there seems to be unique blending of corporate and private persona, which is not at all usual in Europe.
I participated on harassment training due to working with US colleagues, and the level of outright threats and requirements on the workforce down to details of what can constitute as harassment with multimillion unreasonable payouts was shocking not only to me but also to my colleagues including our very own HR. BTW many of those things required could be outright illegal in my jurisdiction, like for instance complete ban on any jokes related to protected characteristics - this would be against Freedom of Speech in Germany. The most shocking thing for me was that manager is obliged to report all potentially illegal thing happening - the US law turns every manager into little commie spy telling to HR what kind of jokes about age or gender were told - even between two friend in breakroom, otherwise he may be held liable if they "fail to act". In true US fashion many of the most shocking breaches of rights and freedoms were outsourced to private sector. You have right to tell a joke, but be prepared to get fired.
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