Regardless of which co-defendant is speaking, their attorneys need to tell them to shut up. Anything they say can and will be used against them; explanations and claims of innocence will be parsed, examined, and picked apart by prosecutors. Statements and writings attributed to them and published on their domain can be used against them or used to shake them up during cross-examination if they choose to testify.

This is not the type of case that will be won in the press -- interviews like this can only hurt their case.

If Joe had been my client I would have wanted to strangle him! I am sure he wanted to paint himself in a good light, but newspaper writers lie to get interviews, they edit, "paraphrase" and in the end they write stories that sell papers, not exonerate anyone. The time for making such statements like Joe did is at trial, not in the press before the trial begins.

There is a lot of evidence that will be presented that needs to be refuted or explained if they want a jury to return the "not guilty" verdict, so the defense needs to have every option and strategy available because the stakes are as high as you can get. Public statements like this actually limit the defense attorney's options as he tries to blur the picture the prosecutor will try to paint. Even if Joe does not testify, this article and his quotes can be shown to the jury -- and that could force the defense lawyer to put Joe on the stand to testify, which will open him up to cross examination, and at this time, with my limited knowledge of the co-defendants, as a defense lawyer I would want to avoid putting them on the witness stand.