> The law can't handle willful lawbreakers that way; otherwise criminals would develop strong ethical reservations about all sorts of stupid things.

The law or rather the judges make judgement calls all the time. Does someone get bail? Does this person hide something? Is this interpretation by a lawyer sound? What mitigating circumstances should be considered in a judgement?

It's not like people ask for something unprecedented here and the law up until now was some mechanical process that always lead to the same outcome.