Attorney Client Privilege/ Alton Logan Ethical Dilemma

[okiedokietoo]

That applies to a crime yet to be committed that will cause death or serious bodily harm. You can't tell your attorney you are going to kill someone, or rob a bank with a machine gun. That is not privileged. There are also fraud situations that will cause major financial harm that can be disclosed in some states. They cannot hold evidence for you, but they absolutely cannot share evidence or any statement made by you to them. They could be disbarred.

I posted a link to a lawyer who was indicted for not supplying the location of a body and the case was dismissed because it was privileged information.

lol I know I am just determined but you are very most likely and totally right - I concede

 

[TURBOTHINK]

That applies to a crime yet to be committed that will cause death or serious bodily harm. You can't tell your attorney you are going to kill someone, or rob a bank with a machine gun. That is not privileged. There are also fraud situations that will cause major financial harm that can be disclosed in some states. They cannot hold evidence for you, but they absolutely cannot share evidence or any statement made by you to them. They could be disbarred.

I posted a link to a lawyer who was indicted for not supplying the location of a body and the case was dismissed because it was privileged information.

The Anthonys better have a GOOD COPY of their agreement to hire NeJames, because in the absence of an iron clad retainer agreement, accompanied by a monetary payment, there is NO privilege.

 

[flnana]

Did anyone follow this story last year? I think we might have a thread on it. Anyway,it was really interesting and eye opening:
Inmate’s freedom may hinge on secret kept for 26 years


For a quarter of a century, defense lawyers Dale Coventry and Jamie Kunzwere bound by the rules of law to hold onto a secret that now could mean freedom for a man serving a life sentence for murder.
The secret – memorialized in a notarized affidavit that they locked in ametal box – was that their client, Andrew Wilson, admitted that he shotgunned to death a security guard at a McDonald’s restaurant on the South Side in January 1982.
Bound to silence by attorney-client privilege, Kunz and Coventry could do nothing as another man, Alton Logan, 54, was tried and convicted instead.
The two lawyers testified in court last week that they were bound by theattorney-client privilege and Wilson’s admonition that they only reveal hisadmission after his death. Wilson, who was serving a life sentence for themurders of two Chicago police officers, died of natural causes Nov. 19.
snip
Coventry and Kunz both recounted separately how they had been haunted overthe years by knowing that they had evidence of Logan’s innocence, but couldnot legally disclose it until Wilson died.

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/jan/19/news/chi-secretjan19

Thank you JBean. I have wanted to post about this for a while, but I'm not the best poster, so I was hoping someone else would write it up.

 

[flnana]

The Anthonys better have a GOOD COPY of their agreement to hire NeJames, because in the absence of an iron clad retainer agreement, accompanied by a monetary payment, there is NO privilege.

Does that mean that a pro bono lawyer is not bound by the same rules? Sorry, I'm just confused about the money part. I didn't know that.

 

[impatientredhead]

The Anthonys better have a GOOD COPY of their agreement to hire NeJames, because in the absence of an iron clad retainer agreement, accompanied by a monetary payment, there is NO privilege.

Nejame has been in public and stated he was their attorney, and resigned as their attorney. The relationship can't be questioned, privilege exists. You don't have to have a written agreement or a payment.

WHAT CONSTITUTES AN ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP?

We begin our analysis of the privilege with the obvious: before the privilege exists, there must be an attorney-client relationship. As elementary as this concept seems, many clients assume the relationship exists and mistakenly rely upon the protection of the privilege, but the privilege does not exist until the relationship is firmly established. Generally speaking, the attorney-client privilege does not take hold until the parties have agreed on the representation of the client.
In the majority of cases, the determination that the attorney-client relationship exists is not a laborious undertaking, for more often than not, the attorney has expressly acknowledged representation of the client. Such an express acknowledgment may be demonstrated by an engagement letter, a fee contract, or even an oral agreement as to the scope of the representation. An attorney-client relationship may also be expressly acknowledged by the “appearance” of the attorney on behalf of the client, including filing pleadings in court for the client, drafting documents on behalf of the client, or appearing in court as the representative of a litigant.11


http://www.sgrlaw.com/resources/trust_the_leaders/leaders_issues/ttl5/916/

 

[TURBOTHINK]

Does that mean that a pro bono lawyer is not bound by the same rules? Sorry, I'm just confused about the money part. I didn't know that.

In this state there has to be an exchange of some type of monetary payment before any attorney/client agreement is legal. If they just signed the agreement, but exchanged no money, or if it was promised through another means (like TV appearances) there is no privilege.

 

[impatientredhead]

In this state there has to be an exchange of some type of monetary payment before any attorney/client agreement is legal. If they just signed the agreement, but exchanged no money, or if it was promised through another means (like TV appearances) there is no privilege.

Most of the duties flowing from the client-lawyer relationship attach only after the client has requested the lawyer to render legal services and the lawyer has agreed to do so. But there are some duties, such as that of confidentiality under rule 4-1.6, which may attach when the lawyer agrees to consider whether a client-lawyer relationship shall be established.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/ethics/fl/code/FL_CODE.HTM#Rule_4-1.6


According to the ethics rules in Florida they are the same, privilege begins when legal advise is sought. No financial requirement. No written requirement.

 

[AZlawyer]

The Anthonys better have a GOOD COPY of their agreement to hire NeJames, because in the absence of an iron clad retainer agreement, accompanied by a monetary payment, there is NO privilege.

That definitely is not true in Arizona, and I suspect not anywhere else either. Pro bono representation is covered by the privilege, as are communications made in anticipation of representation even if ultimately the lawyer does not take the case.

 

[AZlawyer]

Something else interesting about A/C privilege...

If you (the lawyer) have been told something that is keeping you awake at night and you can't get your client (let's say the Anthonys as a hypothetical example) to do the right thing, what can you do that is both consistent with the ethical rules and your own personal moral code? You can make a "noisy withdrawal." That means you withdraw from the representation, but you don't go quietly...instead you make a big announcement about how you're withdrawing, for reasons that you can't exactly tell, but you strongly imply that they are reasons having to do with your moral discomfort with the situation.

Hmmmmm....

 

[Ocean Lover]

That definitely is not true in Arizona, and I suspect not anywhere else either. Pro bono representation is covered by the privilege, as are communications made in anticipation of representation even if ultimately the lawyer does not take the case.

I believe that he was originally hired as a spokesperson not an attorney. Wasn't he hired by Kid Finders for them?

 

[Ocean Lover]

In this state there has to be an exchange of some type of monetary payment before any attorney/client agreement is legal. If they just signed the agreement, but exchanged no money, or if it was promised through another means (like TV appearances) there is no privilege.

Welcome back Turbo. I love reading your posts!

 

[maur33]

This is no where close to being an answer but I am determined to find a loop hole somewhere. This has more to do with evidence that would prove someone innocent

Lawyers may disclose client confidences and secrets
"when permitted under Disciplinary Rules or required
by law or court order," DR 4-101(C)(2) and
when the secrets involve "[t]he intention of his
client to commit a crime and the information necessary
to prevent the crime." DR 4-101(C)(3). The Code commands
that a lawyer not "[c]onceal or knowingly fail to disclose
that which he is required by law to reveal." DR 7-102(A)(3).
EC 7-27 requires that a lawyer "not suppress evidence that
he or his client has a legal obligation to reveal or
produce."http://www.cobar.org/index.cfm/ID/3...'s-Incriminating-Physical-Evidence,-07/24/82/
__________________

Oh please find a loop hole, this is just ridiculous.

So let's see here:

The A/C privilege applies to jose and casey and Nejame and the anthony's. So anything that casey tells jose, we know is privilieged..unless she tells him she wants out of jail to say 'oh' go kill her mother.

The attorney client privilege doesn't extend from jose to Nejame or from Nejame to the PI's. Now if jose broke privilege and told others, and they told 2 friends and so on and so on, priviliege no longer applies because these people had no right to know that information and to keep it to themselves.

Now Nejame can't reveal anything the anthony's tell him unless they also express an interest in commiting a new crime, but according to the bolded part he can reveal something they told him that they themselves were duty bound to report. Well then there you go, the anthony's were not entitled to keep the whereabouts of their dead granddaughter to themselves.

 

[kcaddict]

I am not sure if this article will help. I remember reading this story and wondering how it applied to the CA case....

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/article807117.ece

 

[Wudge]

I am not sure if this article will help. I remember reading this story and wondering how it applied to the CA case....

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/article807117.ece

It doesn't apply to this case. It's a real-life ethics versus moral dilemma example.

 

[pirate]

kc, it helped me. That's quite a story and quite a burden that lawyer carried.

Thank you.

 

[ThoughtElf]

So, we should pay attention if any attorney makes a noisy withdrawal. I wonder if that's happened here. Hmmmmm....

$5.00 says someone posts tonight asking if it has happened.

 

[okiedokietoo]

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/hottype/080131/

The Greater of Two Evils
When is it OK to let an innocent man rot in jail?
By Michael Miner
January 31, 2008 (quotes from article)

John Conroy (on WBEZ) and Maurice Possley (in the Tribune) recently reported on two lawyers, Dale Coventry and Jamie Kunz, who have known since 1982 that an innocent man was behind bars for a murder their own client committed. The reporters explained the legal reason for this travesty: the absolutism of the client-attorney privilege, which guarantees that anything a client tells his lawyers will be kept in confidence forever.


http://depaullaw.typepad.com/library/2008/03/60-minutes-segm.html
(quotes from article)
March 11, 2008
"60 Minutes" Segment on the Local Case of Alton LoganThis past Sunday, the television news program, "60 Minutes", featured a story about a Chicago resident , Alton Logan, who has been in jail for 26 years for a killing, that lawyers, Dale Coventry and Jamie Kunz, have known he did not commit. One of the clients of the two attorneys, was Andrew Wilson, who confessed to them that he was the one who had killed the person that Logan had been convicted of murdering.



JMO which is more important - making sure an innocent man doesn't spend 26 years in prison or a license to practice law?

 

[Verité]

. . .On March 17, 1982, they signed a notarized affidavit that said: “I have obtained information through privileged sources that a man named Alton Logan who was charged with the fatal shooting of Lloyd Wickliffe at on or about 11 Jan. 82 is in fact not responsible for that shooting that in fact another person was responsible.” Coventry put the affidavit in a metal box and put the box away. They made no copies.

Andrea Lyon, today the director of the DePaul Center for Justice in Capital Cases and in 1982 a member of the public defender’s homicide task force, notarized the affidavit. A notary doesn’t have to read the document she’s notarizing, but Lyon not only read and understood the affidavit,

to the best of her recollection she wrote it. She says she’d written motions for Coventry and Kunz on Wilson’s behalf and considered him to be, as a practical matter, her client too. She felt just as bound to silence as her colleagues. . . .

. . .Professor Andrea Lyon, the director of the DePaul Center for Justice in Capital Cases, worked with the two attorneys in defending Mr. Wilson, their client. As a practical matter she considered Mr. Wilson to be her client as well. So she also was among the attorneys who decided not disclose the confession.

Now the above is way too chilling for my simplistic view of right vs. wrong. Y' better believe that it will frame my perspective during the entire Casey Anthony trial.

Thanks so much for this info! Incredible!

 

[nssherlock]

IMO There's something inherently wrong with a "code" that would force members of any discipline to make a false and immoral choice such as this. Sometimes one just has to do What Is Right...........and accept the consequences of following your conscience. If not being able to practice is the consequence - then there are meaningful contributions to be made elsewhere, hopefully in an arena that makes it easier to face yourself in the mirror each day.

 

[Verité]

AL might be highly regarded by defence bars, Wudge, but not by me. I would sooner leave a profession than knowingly and willingly allow an innocent person to remain behind bars. . . .

Or, perhaps free a guilty one! The case cited by okiedokietoo blows my mind to the extent that I've formed immediate dislike of any AL theory, regardless how flawlessly stated.
When folks begin to play God vis a vis esoteric legal theory (a la Lyons, Dershowitz, et al), I'm overcome by profound distrust and disdain. 'nuff said. I'm jaded for the duration
of the Casey Anthony trial.