The Trump ally's acknowledgment came in a filing Tuesday related to the 2020 election workers' lawsuit about baseless claims of fraud that he made against them.
This headline is, ironically, false. This is a nolo contendre (“I do not wish to contend”) stipulation. He’s saying that he does not actually admit to making the false statements, but he has no defense to offer the court (because he of course absolutely did make the false statements), so he’s willing to just accept whatever punishment comes with it. The major benefit for him is that it applies only to this specific case, whereas if he actually admitted his guilt to the court, that would then be an established fact that could be used in other cases.
Sadly, the answer to this is going to feel pretty circular. It can't be used in other cases because this was a no contest plea and the difference between a guilty and no contest plea is that a no contest plea can't be used in future legal matters as evidence for guilt.
No contest pleas are not always available to a defendant. Consider it similar to any other plea bargain.
The philosophical justification is that the person has not admitted to anything and the court did not find him guilty. The no contest plea is your way of saying "I admit no wrongdoing but will simply accept the punishment to avoid this whole process". Since there was no trial you can't say the person was found guilty in any trial.
If they find him guilty why couldn’t that be used in future cases? I don’t see the functional difference between pleading “innocent” and being found guilty versus “no contest” with the same outcome.
They aren't finding him guilty. If you offer no contest, there is no trial.
The prosecution plantiffs COULD reject the no contest bid and pursue the trial anyway. Which is why I said earlier you should think of this as a plea bargain of sorts.
Because he's neither technically admitting that he did it nor will it be proven in court that he did it. He's saying, "For the sake of this case only, let's just assume I did it and act accordingly." If he told the court "I did it" then everyone else in other cases could just point to that and not even need to prove it in the first place.
Add comment