You know, some of you people really get me upset. Yeah, I know that when you appear before someone in authority you have to look your best. But the Constitution was not written for those who appear in GQ. It is for all US citizens. If this guy is a citizen (it appears that he is) and he did not understand the legal language, and asked for an attorney, the judge should have stopped and appointed one for him. Read the article again - even other attorneys thought this was strange. And one of the things an attorney does is instruct ignorant people on how to dress. But you people who profess to believe in our Constitution would just throw this guy to the wolves. Don't you understand that part of our duty is to help the weak and defenseless. He is a teen but in a court he is weak. Sometimes I wonder about you people who just want justice for the well-heeled.
With the information offered in the article, I really don't think a conclusion can be drawn either way. There appear to be obvious omissions of statements and rearranging of statements to make "someone" appear to be the Bad Guy. Re-read the article - leaps of fuzzy logic everywhere.
I find it quite interesting that Mom didn't have the foresight to retain a PD but sure knew she should bring her own tape recorder. I also wonder "what" she was telling her darling son in Spanish. "Keep acting stupid, honey - we gonna trash this system good so you (Mommy) won't have to pay nuthin'."
The attorneys commenting about this in the article were related the "facts" by the reporter, and hence, could have been led into the conclusions they made. Nothing mentioned that they actually heard Mom's smuggled tape recording.
There's still more to play out on this.