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Originally Posted by Prison Bitch
Your analogy doesn't apply here DJ. Child molestation isn't a 60/40 proposition you need to calculate a probability of winning on. ROI, etc.
It's 100% either/or. You did it or you didn't. And if you didn't you go full-bore into court and plead innocence. And do so until you die, outcome independent. Nobody will EVER accuse me of that crap.
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I will concede it's a different environment entirely (in fact I believe I started from that very point). But even in criminal cases we will acknowledge the possibility of 'no win situations' with Nolo Contendere pleas. And there are absolutely situations where people will take one of those because it's the path of least resistance.
It isn't a 'ROI' analysis in question here but rather a risk/reward one. I can't speak to what the actual possibilities were here - I have no idea what the law in his state was at the time (was it Washington?). But let's say he has a 25% chance of being convicted and spending the rest of his HS days in a juvenile detention center before being released into society without a HS degree and one hell of a problem on his resume to explain. Or he takes the plea, keeps moving forward with his life and 5 years later the records are sealed. An attorney would be committing malpractice to simply not discuss that sequence of events with him and insist he consider the potentially catostrophic downside of digging his heels in. The lawyer doesn't ultimately make the call, but there's no way he should have gone into a room with him and that family and said what you're saying "Screw even thinking about the offer man - if you didn't do it, fight it".
A lot of people will naturally come to that conclusion on their own, no doubt. I'd suggest a majority would. But some absolutely wouldn't. What Heimlich did was almost certainly the path of least resistance and presented by far and away the least amount of risk. There's an argument, even if a fairly tenuous one, in favor of exactly what he claims he did and it happens in offices and courtrooms around the country daily. Because in the end,
you know 100% whether you did or didn't do it, but the finder of fact doesn't. And even if you know you didn't do it, you can never be 100% certain that the folks that are about to decide whether your life is effectively obliterated are going to comet o that same conclusion.