When he was explaining to me the legal ramifications of a response to Getty vs. no response, I was trying to relate this concept of “you responded because thought you should respond” to the closest concept that I could think of at the time, which was an action that could be interpreted (perhaps incorrectly) as an admission of guilt. He was not telling me that the concepts were the exactly the same. I have tried to explain this as clearly as I can, but my recall of his words can not be expected to be exact. The conversation was about 2 weeks ago. I was only trying to convey the gist and general points of the conversation, not an exact quote.
If this is true, then what about removing the image? Surely the retired judge told you to take down the image. Isn't that also an implied admission of guilt?
(By the way, I hope you don't feel "ganged up on". We just think about and discuss these things waaaaaaay to much.)