americans , and that meeting occurred in mid october of 1998 which you might remember about the time messrs. sheppard was left to die on offense in wyoming and a really captured the nation. all of this is going on at the same time, and they were persuaded, john lawrence and tyrone were persuaded that there was a larger cross than just their own innocence and that the police shouldn't be allowed to do this in the future. >> host: it's a big decision but they were sort of taking one for the team. they were sort of admitting something that they say did not have been pleading to something they didn't do as a way to getting a case to challenge the law. is that correct? >> it is the case in a lot of further terrorist actions. this case would have gone away from the prosecution. they wouldn't have pressed the case but in the and the texas prosecutors and the texas courts were not willing to have this case go away. >> host: the gay-rights movement in this case is lucky or blessed one might say. it was also lucky and fortunate in that it had a set of prosecutors and the district attorney's and the judges ulti