Quote from Wayne Gibbous:
Tell me, Good SurfyBoy, how pleading guilty to 3 charges makes Mr Williams "innocent"?
Yer a real crackup, Davy!
No Mr Gibbous, you are the crackup because it is quite obvious that you are very naive about how the US "Justice" (sic) system works.
If you want to learn what really happens in the vast majority of criminal prosecution cases, I suggest you buy yourself a copy of "The Tyranny of Good Intentions" by Paul Craig Roberts and read it before displaying your ignorance on a public forum.
Prosecutors make the decision to try a case based on their probability of obtaining a conviction, and the question of guilt or innocence is not part of the equation. Take a look at the San Diego DA web page and you'll find they brag about a 94% conviction rate. Think about what that means. Does it mean that 100% of the people who were indicted were guilty and 94% of them were convicted? Or does it mean that 94% of the defendants were convicted regardless of whether they were guilty or innocent? I think you will find that the second option is the correct answer, and unless you are a strong advocate of fascism, you should find that conclusion a little frightening.
Larry was indicted on 9 felony accounts and all were dropped. Do you think the DA would have dropped them if he thought he had a strong chance of obtaining a conviction on even one of them? Hardly. Larry only agreed to the minor misdemeanor charges because it was the most expedient way to get the case settled. Considering the severity of the original indictment, it's clear that Larry was not guilty of any of the charges. The DA agreed to the minor misdemeanor plea bargain mainly to cover his own butt. He wasted a huge amount of taxpayer money pursuing the case, so he had to have something to show for it. He will count this as a "conviction" in his own book even though it's obvious he failed to prove his original allegations.
Fortunately for Larry, he had the resources to keep the wolves at bay. However, I personally know of some other cases where people exhausted all their financial resources including retirement savings to avoid being sent to prison for false charges. Want to guess how much of their legal expenses were reimbursed after the charges were dismissed?
Just pray you never make an innocent mistake and draw a DA's attention. You would be in for a very nasty wake-up call on how our criminal "justice" system really works.