Question

What are some advantages/disadvantages of US legal system? Support your response with appropriate examples and/or sound reasoning reflecting an understanding of the relevant content knowledge.

Answer 1

Advantages:

In criminal law, people have to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This places a very strong burden of proof on prosecutors which make innocent people hard to convict.

It is an adversarial system meaning both the parties of cases get to have their own lawyers to fight for them. Any defendant, then, can have a lawyer whose only duty is to represent the client. That lawyer will then unbiasedly represent the client.

The system limits the sorts of evidence that can be used against criminal defendants. Police are not allowed to use evidence found in illegal searches and seizures in court. Defendants cannot be made to testify against themselves in court. People cannot present hearsay evidence against defendants. All of these things make the system fairer.

Disadvantages:

The American legal system is biased in favor of wealthy people. Because our system is an adversarial system, the quality of the justice you get depends a lot on the quality of the lawyer you get and poor people can't afford good lawyers. Also the wealthy people can pay the bail while the poor can't.

Justice system is underfunded and overburdened. Courts have huge line of caseloads. Public defenders have too many cases assigned to them.

Amendment system is too complex to be altered. It is easy to create new amendment instead of improving the old amendment.