I definitely don’t want to start a discussion in comparative law studies (one which I couldn’t possibly win) but rather wanted to make the point how strange I found it that something that most here regard instinctively as unfair is something that didn’t bother me at all and even upon reflection I find hard to consider wrong. I think that says a lot about socialisation and how the concept of fairness is being constructed from it.
I have seen similar incongruities with other concepts, such as absolute free speech. Up until a few years ago that seemed to be an absolutely and self evidently good thing to every American I talked to, while for me as a German it was obvious that it can be really dangerous. Thankfully that is a gap that has closed in recent years.
The speech concept is one that I am much more familiar with! I am friends with several German lawyers and we have very friendly and robust discussions on whether laws regulating speech are or ever can be a good thing. I feel like I’ve convinced at least one of my German lawyer friends that the US way is better - and she did her doctorate on the Nuremberg trials so is very familiar with the rationale for the German approach.
If the gap is closing in the direction of Germany’s approach, I think that would be very unfortunate. The remedy for bad speech is more speech.
Speech protections is an area I strongly feel the US gets more right than anywhere else in the world (or at least anywhere that I know about the laws).
(ETA: One of those “German” lawyers is actually Austrian - you’d think I would be more careful about that since he and I both attended the University of Vienna! albeit at different times. )
Well, in the U.S.A., after you are convicted*, it doesn’t matter if you were actually innocent. After all, you had your fair trial, and no amount of evidence of your actual innocence will automatically result in being set free, or even getting a new trial.
For that, we have the likes of Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas to thank, among others.
*Barring flagrant shenanigans by the Prosecution, of course.
Usually.
)