This is like a topsy-turvy world. The idea that a scummy or sympathetic defendant would not get the same treatment is genuinely weird and not at all an instinctive approach to justice.

Equal treatment under the law is justice. The only thing that should distinguish a scummy or sympathetic defendant are the __facts__ in their respective cases. Not the law.

By the time a case reaches the Supreme Court, it is never really about the defendant—the facts of a case are almost never in dispute—the question is usually a very narrow disagreement over a particular matter of law.