This is one of those things that sounds good in theory, but is terrible in practice.
It would incentivize prosecution to avoid court at all costs. Which means de facto immunity for wealthy people who can easily afford to go to court. And it will probably make law enforcement even worse about railroading people who can't afford any legal representation.
> It would incentivize prosecution to avoid court at all costs.
Their job is to prosecute. Their only option is to pick cases that can be won. Which isn't hard, as the average person who is charged with some criminal act is not only guilty, but clearly guilty.
> Which means de facto immunity for wealthy people who can easily afford to go to court.
Money can't make a guilty man innocent. If you've actually done something wrong and there is evidence against you, the prosecution should have no qualms about prosecuting. In rare cases bad luck might lead to a payout due to a botched case or other unusual circumstance. But governments have enough money to self-insure for rare cases like that. It probably wouldn't even be a once-in-a-career event for the average prosecutor.
> And it will probably make law enforcement even worse about railroading people who can't afford any legal representation.
Rather the opposite: since full compensation is guaranteed if you win, it would be much easier to get a lawyer to work on contingency if you can convince them you are innocent. Right now that is very hard because even if you win, it's quite difficult to get the state to pay your legal bills so lawyers have no incentive to help you.
> as the average person who is charged with some criminal act is not only guilty, but clearly guilty.
I don’t even know why we have all this stuff like lawyers judges, prosecutors, hierarchy of courts, appeals. It could all be automated with kiosk at the police station.
We have all that stuff because if we didn't, it's likely that prosecutors would start abusing their power a lot more, and then the average person charged would not be guilty.
Possibly, but the legal system does not deal with guilty or innocent. The legal system deals with probabilities (e.g. probable cause among others), deals with attempts to display intent, deals with interpretations of human language, deals with emotional arguments, and many other things that are not deterministic. Money most certainly can influence those aspects.
Funny. OP sounds like someone who has experience with the justice system to me. Most everyone else isn't so painfully aware of the personal collateral damage the justice system causes.
It would incentivize prosecution to avoid court at all costs. Which means de facto immunity for wealthy people who can easily afford to go to court. And it will probably make law enforcement even worse about railroading people who can't afford any legal representation.