But kids tend not to take their parent’s advice so maybe his father did :-p
I don’t know what would or would not hold up in court, but this basically sets him up to say, look, “I had no idea and I even said as much.” As long as any other evidence does not contradict that then it would probably hold some weight.
> As long as any other evidence does not contradict that
That will be the problem. Its not just tweets he would have to worry about, esp as its been shown that during his "what happened" string of tweets his tweet count wasn't changing, so basically posting at the same time as deleting a tweet.
What was in those deleted tweets? Getting those deleted tweets from twitter (if they haven't already been archived) won't be a issue. Plus I'm sure people will have copies of any off twitter conversations he has had.
If he does try a "incompetency defense" all those will come out in court and which will look like such a defense would be in bad faith which won't play well with a jury.
Intent isn't always required, for an extreme example (just one that jumped to mind) involuntary manslaughter doesn't require intent. INAL so can't state if criminal fraud explictly requires intent (iirc and INAL so don't hold this as gospel I think criminal fruad requires intent but civil fraud doesn't - "just" negligence) but again INAL "destruction of evidence" could infer intent (however unless he has already been served with notice not to delete things related to this mere deletion of tweets may not been proof of destruction of evidence.
I do enjoy following a good trial. I can forsee any case against him being a federal case and we don't get cameras inside the court on federal cases, otherwise it would have been interesting to watch.