People here are fixating too much on how he could have avoided receiving this overly harsh sentence. The article is trying to draw attention to the fact that t

People here are fixating too much on how he could have avoided receiving this overly harsh sentence. The article is trying to draw attention to the fact that the sentence itself is overly harsh, not that he could have gotten out of it had he played his cards better. Teaching people how to properly interact with police and the court system is all fine and good but it'd be better to fix the root cause of the problem if we can. These consequences should not even be possible regardless of what mistakes the person committing the crime made in his interactions with authorities.