Strauss-Kahn denied bail

This seems to me like THE RIGHT DECISION by the judge. He had already boarded a flight, it would be extremely difficult to have him re-extradited from France given who he is, and we now hear that he may have done this sort of thing before. The article mentions Polanski, and that is probably the specter in the minds of the New York justice system at the moment and is going to mean that he doesn’t see the outside of jail until the trial is complete.

In other words, Strauss-Kahn will be in jail for at least a year even if he is found not guilty. The evidence must also be pretty compelling for them to take this step.

I’ve been reading several French newspaper reader blogs to gauge the French reaction to the case, and I’ve been surprised to see so many readers saying the same positive thing: “You can say what you like about the American judicial system, but at least it treats the big people and the small people the same way.” That’s not always true of course, but perhaps it’s more true in the U.S. than in France for some reason; I don’t know. Certainly it’s more true in the U.S. than in Egypt.

More generally, I’ve been enjoying the French explanations to their readers of how the U.S. judicial system works. Everything I’ve seen so far has been accurate and unsurprising, but it’s fun to read about one’s own standard system described as if in anthropological terms.