Plea bargains in the American court.

[denuseri]

"It is as well to recognise that the difference between the American system and our own is not perhaps so stark as the appellant’s argument suggests.

Which really shouldn't be surprising considering where the majority of we former colonists originally came from.

We could have done something completely different, yet we adhered to the familiar.

[js207]

Which really shouldn't be surprising considering where the majority of we former colonists originally came from.

We could have done something completely different, yet we adhered to the familiar.

I'm not sure plea bargaining is something that was inherited in that way, although of course many of the founding principles were retained - indeed, one of the founding objections in the Declaration of Independence was that the King was infringing the traditional legal protections afforded by the English legal system - a pattern which continues to this day, with governments here starting to infringe protection against double jeopardy which the US still holds to.

There are other systems out there - but I would say the choice made by Australia, Canada, the US and others to retain much of the English approach is a good one, particularly when I compare it to the others I have learned about. When followed, it's a good and robust system, the product of centuries of experience and refinement. Other aspects of the government are much less palatable of course: the lack of separation of legislative and executive functions in particular, and much less democracy and accountability than I see in most US states, but the actual legal system is a good one.