A good example of the above for example is that you point out how in the UK the standard exists based on the Jury being "sure of guilt" this is not the case in the US. In the US whether the Jury thinks someone is guilty is supposed to be irrelevent, with the Jury being specifically instructed to vote on the Law as it exists, rather than their personal interpetation or beliefs based on the evidence. Of course in practice it proves nearly impossible to divorce people from individual opinions.[/quote] I think I did not make the term "sure of guilt" clear enough. The sureness of guilt must come entirely from evidence provided during the trial - thus any bias or deciding that "this guy surely is guilty" just from a general gut feeling goes against the court rule. If anything, the UK court systen actually make it harder to convict someone than the US court system. It is unlikely that most cases will be able to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that someone is guilty.Therumancer said:
Despite this, (as our resident "ask a policeman" will tell you) 2/3rds of court cases end in some kind of conviction. This is because law enforcement agencies will not push for a trial until they know they have accumulated enough evidence to get a conviction. They will not bother with anything less.
Yes, this often happens in the UK as well as many other places. And of course, criminals have the right to appeal if they believe they have been wrongly convicted. As was the case of Megrahi, convicted of the Lockerbie bombings. He actually had reasonably strong grounds to appeal against his life sentence, though he ended up dropping the appeal on the offer that he could be released on compassionate grounds; something which American senators were strongly against.
No it isn't. Try looking for evidence to support such a claim, because I already have and came up with nothing. Firstly, it can be argued that it is impossible to quantify the "most free country". There are a various categories of freedom, and whilst America is likely to trump countries in some, it loses out in others. Europeans will smugly scorn America for its treatment of homosexuals (openly homosexual people still can't serve in the military) or its "prudish" and "puritanical" approach to things like the age of consent, or alcohol consuption. Meanwhile, the UK clearly lags behind in terms of gun-ownership rights and libel laws.
Economic freedoms can be quantified, in which case, America comes 4th in the list and Britain, 12th. Hong Kong wins for having the most free a market. America has a Bill of Rights garenteeing the protection of certain freedoms, but then so does nearly every other country. The UK is actually one of the few exceptions to this (though it does have several physical documents, like the Magna Carta, which serves a vaguely similar purpose).
I wouldn't necessarily blame it on freedom. Again, I'd attribute it to socio/economic and cultural elements which are unique to every country (and often every city).
Agreed. Although I'm not so fond of your choice of words in regards to "the spread of US culture".
