Shouldn’t it be the default and not require the suspect/subject to actually ask for one? Has there ever been any attempt to make that the norm in any countries? I think the only question should be “do you have your own lawyer you like to use, or are you happy enough with the court-appointed one?”
I’m not even sure opting out should be allowed, but I’m open to hearing reasons why that would be a bad system, or indeed a worse system than the one most countries seem to have now. So many miscarriages of justice could have been easily avoided.
I should have said, I’m Australian. When I was assaulted in my own home by feral kids (really bad neighborhood), the police were there within 20 minutes, and all three got taken to Child Services (yeah that kind of neighborhood where the parents aren’t really anywhere.) When I was assaulted in public, near a tram stop, two Authorised Officers (Rail Police type thing, but not armed, only handcuffs) got the people responsible for it, and they were transferred to the police. I was told by an obviously unwell person that they would stab me and my eyes out. Authorised Officer removed them from the train. I could go on. I’m from a country where this isn’t such an issue with police being violent towards anyone. (If someone here wants to bring up what happened recently in the Northern Territory, it’s pretty obvious how that was started, and I have no intention of having an argument with you. Coles sucks, but that man got physical first with the employee.)