“We’re in full damage-control mode, okay? This situation has to be contained. People are watching this case closely and they’re not going to look too kindly on a busted drug-using judge enjoying leniency or special treatment.
“Especially with you being a daily user for all those years, getting your stuff from a probation officer, and having another junco jurist die on your property. C’mon, man, you’re lucky you weren’t charged with something way more serious.
“Hey, don’t panic. You’re still one of us. We protect our own, and we’ll take care of you, too. We’ll go as easy as we can on you, but we have to make it look like we’re being tough. We’re going to make sure you don’t get more than two years, but we have to make it look like you were hoping for less time and we came down hard on you.
“So, here’s the plan: you agree to plead guilty for a sentence of 18 months and the judge will be all stern and act like that’s not enough time. Then, after a week or two, he’ll come back and hit you with a two-year sentence. Sure, it’s only six months more, but it will create the impression that we didn’t cut you any slack, get it?
“In the meantime, you get no more than the two years we promised you, and you’ll probably serve only 18 months of it anyway, if that much.
“The bottom line is, we can’t risk any surprises, so we’ve got to make it look like you got what was coming to you and keep this case from going to trial. Remember [wink, wink], ‘nobody had a clue’ about your drug use. That’s our story. The last thing we want is for word to get out that lots of people had a clue – and they weren’t all nobodies.”
We fabricated the preceding scenario. Who concocted the “nobody had a clue” story?