[NCAces]

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But if Ali had been in the USA rather than in Holland, she'd have been either shipped to Guantanamo as a terrorist, or deported as an illegal immigrant, not just evicted from her house, so the issue would never have arisen.

And her eviction had nothing to do with property values. Rather, people felt that she was likely to attract terrorist activity in the area and so her 'bravery' actually posed a threat to their safety. Presumably, you aren't suggesting that Americans don't take their security seriously? Because I travel to both countries regularly, and I know which of the two has the higher level of petty, over-the-top security checking and it isn't The Netherlands.

As why I'd prefer to be in front of a Dutch court as opposed to a US court -- well, there are several reasons:

1.) the quality of my defense isn't as likely to depend on how wealthy I am. See the latest Grisham, in which the lawyer is paid $3000 to mount a defence in a murder trial, so acting in his client's interest is actually costing him a fortune.

2.) I'm never going to be wrongly executed by a Dutch court.

3.) Politics will play a much smaller role in determining whether the case will be brought in the Netherlands.

4.) If convicted in Holland, I'd be sent to a reasonably decent and humane prison and wouldn't be forcibly buggered by the brothers on a regular basis.

Don't get me wrong: this isn't standard European anti-Americanism. I envy aspects of your political system and some of the aspects of how your court system works. And I'm British, so we invented the adversarial system. *And* I'm married to a lawyer, so at least half of our household income depends upon it.

Obviously, both sides have strengths and weaknesses, but on balance I'd definitely rather be tried in Holland than the UK or the USA.

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I see a number of problems with your argument:

1. The minute you quoted Grisham, you kinda lost it for me. I recogonize that his latest novel is non-fiction, but you are picking an extreme example to make your argument. It is cases like these why the judiciary is rated 94, not 100. Nothing is perfect.

2. You've shifted this to a criminal trial when what we are actually disussing is a civil trial. Moreover, you then talk about the death penalty and terrorism, all politically charged issues that immediately go to the extreme. Those types of cases represent what ... 1-2% of our criminal justice system? That means you are disregarding 98% of our legal system to form your opinion. Tough to make your argument based on that type of extremes. I don't know anything about the index that was quoted, but assuming it is valid and unbiased, I believe that it shows a better overall view of our legal system than some isolated extremes.

NCAces