Originally Posted by
Ular
The Driver got same day (immediately) TWO attorneys which must have cost him more money that he may earn for all his life. So, somebody paid for those attorneys. What for? Just to let them stay aside and look what the driver is telling to investigators? The situation with attorneys and driver is quite obvious for those who live in/know Russia.
One key thing to understand is that Russia has no adversarial system of law. Unlike in the West, where the attorney and the prosecutor compete to convince an impartial judge or a jury, in Russia the prosecutor and the judge are parts of the penal system (which works so reliably that acquittal rates among cases that reach the court are under 1%). This system was inherited from the Soviet Union, where the attorney was a state employee as well.
Since the attorney has no realistic hope of getting his client off the hook once his case reaches the court, his best hope is to work early and closely with investigators, to cooperate as much as possible while trying to redirect blame to someone else, in hopes that the prosecutor decides not to file the case.
One of the biggest reasons why suspects are advised not to talk to anyone in the West is that the suspect could be confronted with his early statements during the trial, and if the prosecutor can demonstrate inconsistencies or evidence of him lying to the jury, that is thought to push the jury towards the guilty verdict. In a non-adversarial, non-jury system this is irrelevant.