You're probably right. Plus I wasn't exactly fair in comparing a population of 300 million to one of 20 million. But where I come from 'going by the book' usually results in the guilty going free, not the innocent getting screwed. IANAL, but I wonder whether this is due to some difference between US law and Roman-Dutch/British law?
Yes, that's right. What you hear about are the extreme edge cases of society - the places where things fall through the cracks. As a whole the US Justice system is incredibly effective.
That being said, in a population of 300 million edge cases start to add up, and they are significant problems we should figure out how to fix.
The function of the Supreme Court is to decide edge cases. Anything they hear is either a question of overlapping laws and/or an area without significant precedents.
