In law, courts occasionally decline to find a defendant at fault not because the defendant “didn’t do it” but rather because the plaintiff—the person who is accusing the defendant of wronging—has “unclean hands.” Sometimes the accuser shares some of the blame for the defendant’s wrongdoing. Other times the accuser has engaged in unethical or unlawful conduct related to the defendant’s wrongdoing. A judge might reason that it would be an injustice to reward this particular accuser. This is true even if the defendant really deserves to be punished.
Unclean hands may become an important dynamic in the NCAA’s investigation into Michigan State.