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The role played by inquisitorialism in American doctrine and practice goes against everything that is usually said about the use of foreign law by scholars. Far from being presented as an example to follow, the inquisitorial model of continental Europe is a “bogeyman” in the United States that only the fringe of the legal doctrine dares present in a neutral or agnostic manner. From 1787 to 1945, representations in American legal thought laid the groundwork for the antiinquisitorial doctrine by highlighting everything in their criminal procedure that differs from its own past. This vocabulary and these arguments will gradually be reused against the contemporary continental European model.