Last week Don posted a useful guide for aspiring defense attorneys.  I think we need to add another bullet:  Under no circumstances should you allow your client, who is under indictment for child molestation, to give a nationally televised interview in which he all but announces his guilt:
In the course of this creepy interview Sandusky denies being a pedophile, but does admit to showering with young boys while “horsing around” with them.
Also, when Costas asks him if he’s attracted to young boys, Sandusky hems and haws before saying no.  I don’t know about you, but if someone asked me if I were attracted to young boys I wouldn’t discuss how I like young boys but I don’t like like young boys.
You almost get the sense from watching this that Sandusky wants to confess but prevents himself from flat out admitting his guilt. Â Just an absolutely disgusting interview, though Costas deserves kudos for allowing Sandusky to hang himself with his responses.
Having attended countless plea hearings, I have never once heard a defendant plead guilty. No contest, yet, but guilty, no. Even when caught red-handed, on video or otherwise clearly culpable, criminal defendants are almost always advised by their lawyers to plead not guilty or otherwise take a plea bargain. Lawyers have a conflict of interest, of course, because by advising clients to plead not guilty, they can extend the case and make much more money, which is the whole object of justice in America.
One postscript. Child molester and American idol Michael Jackson similarly denied abusing kids, saying he “loved them” in a famous interview with Diane Sawyer. In the twisted minds of pedophiles, they can justify their heinous sexual pervasions by couching it as “love.”
My initial advice to all criminal defendants:
I refused to watch this interview. *shudder*
[…] The Sandusky Interview – Paul Zummo, The American Catholic […]
I find it disgraceful that Costas would even interview the guy.
Out west (MIchigan? Wisconsin?) they passed an “anti-bullying” law that forbids potential victims of homosexual “pedophiles” to even say that they don’t approve of homosexuality. So where’s the outcry about that?
I find it disgraceful that Costas would even interview the guy.
Why?