At sentencing after a guilty plea, the defendant described here was asked if he would ever commit his crime again when released. As Brian Weatherson paraphrases the response, the defendant "said that he didn't know because he didn't have an answer to global scepticism." Here's an excerpt from the Washington Post, which is probably worth reading in full:
"What are the chances of you doing this again?" the judge asked.
Timmers -- dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit, his long, white hair flowing down his back -- paused a moment before speaking up.
"There's always a chance of anything, Your Honor," he said.
The judge's jaw dropped. He pressed Timmers to be clear.
"The odds of that happening are 800 million billion to one," Timmers said, "but I can't ever rule anything out completely, Sir."
Sullivan, who has heard thousands of cases in more than two decades on the bench, said he was "astonished." "I don't think in my entire judicial career anyone's ever told me, 'Yeah, I might do this again.' "
"I didn't mean to upset you," Timmers told the judge at one point.
Defense attorney Tony Axam of the Federal Public Defender's Office tried to explain that Timmers, a self-employed woodcutter, is a "deeply, deeply philosophical person" -- for whom there were no absolutes.
(via Brian Weatherson's Blog)
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