alt Hacker NewsOn the other hand, I'm not sure a European style tribunal would have been allowed to settle the case early.
Yes. It's good that the states can serve as a check on the Federal level government. But why can the federal level government give up on cases on a national level? Just because a different party was voted in?
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The problem is that the Department of Justice is part of the Executive Branch, and due to the burgeoning of the Imperial Presidency over the past several decades, that means that as soon as a new President is voted in, he can order the DoJ to change all their priorities to match his.
Our system doesn't have to be this way, even with the federal/state split; it doesn't even have to be this way with the designation of the DoJ as being within the Executive Branch. It's taken a lot of erosion of norms and flagrant breaking of laws to get to the point the US is at now.
No matter what your politics, sooner or later someone you don't agree with will be in charge at the national level.
There are also cases where states take on cases that the national government never pursues in the first case. IIRC, states pursued the tobacco companies when the national government would not (Democrat or Republican).
Of course, it happens in federal courts, so you also need separate and independent branches at the national level. But states that can act independently are important as well.