With the case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn apparently close to collapse, there is a new defendant in the dock: the American judicial system.
While Americans proudly trumpeted the arrest of the powerful Frenchman, many in France were appalled at the treatment he received, pointing to a presumption of guilt.
The most jarring difference between the two systems was on show with the infamous “perp walk”, a handcuffed suspect being marched into a police station in the full glare of the cameras. In France it is illegal to photograph the accused in handcuffs to avoid producing an image of guilt. In America, it is called transparency.
Still, the American claim of equality starts to look hollow when compared with France, where there is no bail: the accused is released or held based on a judge’s decision, not the money that he stumps up.
Mr Strauss-Kahn could easily find the $6 million (£3.7 million) the court demanded and the $250,000 bill to keep him under house arrest. If the case goes to trial, he will have New York’s finest lawyers. Those forced to rely on public defenders are many more times likely to go to jail.
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Mr Strauss-Kahn is also blessed by his colour — a black defendant is six times more likely to be jailed than a Caucasian accused of the same crime.
Legal experts credit the rights afforded to French defendants to the universal adoption of the penal treatment once reserved for aristocrats. America, by contrast, has “seen the universalisation of the treatment previously reserved for plantation slaves”, according to James Whiteman, a legal historian.
“We have to avoid judging the Americans,” said Jean-Claude Magendie, of the Paris Appellate Court. “Their sense of justice is linked to their culture.”
The French culture of misogyny took a battering in this arrest; America’s cultures of capitalism, racism and “transparency” may now also be in the dock.