The right to remain silent

First, a caveat: I am by no means an expert on the Norwegian legal system. We are, however, in the midst of two trials in two of the the most notorious cases in Norwegian legal history. One, which I've written about before, is the "pocket man" case where a 58-year-old man stands accused of molesting hundreds of little boys since 1968. The other is the case of a former policeman accused of trafficking in child porn and traveling to Romania and Brazil to procure young boys for himself and others.

In both cases, there is plenty of damning evidence, and the defense objective seems mostly to be to avoid a court sentence of "forvaring" in addition to the sentence for the crimes of which the defendants stand accused. In recent years Norway gave its courts this option of keeping criminals behind bars indefinitely beyond the end of their sentences (21 years is the maximum here) to protect the rest of us from them if the court finds a strong likelihood that the criminal cannot be rehabilitated. This is VERY RARELY imposed, but in both these cases the prosecuting attorneys have gone on record that they want to lock these men up and throw away the key.

Another striking difference is the seeming presumption that the accused will attempt to explain himself in court. In the States a defendant can stand mute and the jury is not allowed to infer anything from that silence. After watching these two try to justify themselves in the face of all the evidence against them, I realize why lots of American lawyers never put their clients on the stand. Just in yesterday's paper I read that:

1) the pedophile cop says his Romanian and Brazilian accusers are out after the few thousand bucks in monetary compensation that Norwegian courts often award to victims; and
2) the "pocket man" described how he followed a group of boys and selected the seven-year-old he thought most "trusting" before twice molesting him and getting him to perform oral sex.

Admission #2 is particularly damning, since that qualifies as rape under Norwegian law and qualifies for the 21-year maximum sentence, whereas other forms of molestation which he has admitted to do not.

Sometimes the best legal advice is to shut the hell up.