They knew about the severity of the injuries inflicted upon the little girl. They should have known that there was a great chance that a jury would be willing to throw the book at their client and that, if the jury did, Tate likely would be looking at life without parole. Tate deserved much, much more from his lawyers than he received. Blame Florida lawmakers, and lawmakers in too many other states around the country for that matter, for enacting laws which require kids to be tried and then sentenced as adults without giving judges enough discretion to do justice when justice and the letter of the law don't necessarily coincide. A lot of kids do terrible things and ought to be punished severely.
Some kids do terrible things and ought to be given a little, tiny bit of leniency.
In an effort to do away with the perception that judges were being too soft on crime, legislators have skewed the system so that judges' hands are tied so tight that they barely are able to do their jobs. Speaking of judges, Broward County Judge Joel Lazarus also deserves his share of the blame for this fiasco of a result. True, as he said over and over again on Friday, he was only applying the law as he sees it. But somewhere along the way the judge allowed the parties to control the case and the trial to an extent which, as we now know, contributed to this conclusion. He could have forced the parties to more forcefully discuss a plea deal.