why do a couple of lawyers protect a known murderer and let a guy sit in prison for almost 30 years when they know he's innocent?
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/413947
what is the point of allowing anything that a guy says to not be divulged? if you admit to your lawyer that you are guilty, shouldn't you just be put away at that point?
Okay, this is seriously "nutshell", but here goes:
Lawyers are not permitted to divulge client secrets unless the client consents. If it were any other way, 1) it would have a chilling effect on lawyers' ability to defend their clients because clients wouldn't be as forthcoming as they often need to be.
2) Nor would people go to lawyers to seek appropriate legal remedies if they thought any dirty deed they may have already committed could get found out through lawyer tattling.
Moreover, lawyers have to take those client secrets to the grave with them. The duty of confidentiality survives the period of representation. In fact, most legal ethicists maintain the secret must still be protected even after the former client dies. To do otherwise could have that same chilling effect on public confidence in lawyer-client confidentiality.
As an aside, the classic "Kobiashi Maru" scenario posed by legal professional responsibility profs goes like this:
Your client is accused of a crime he did not commit and you know one of your former clients actually committed the crime. Can you rat out your former client to get your current client off? Afterall, you have a duty to zealously defend your current client and to use all ethical means at your disposal to get him acquitted.
The answer is no.
There is an exception to the rule though. If you have reason to beleive your client is going to kill or cause serious bodily harm to someone, you are permitted (not required) to report it to authorities. Mind you, that is prospective in nature, NOT respective. Stuff he already did is not reportable. period.
Last edited by Okla-homey; 4/13/2008 at 02:01 PM.
"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever they can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser; in fees, expenses and waste of time." -- Abraham Lincoln, (1809-1865) Lawyer and President who saved the United States.
"Without opportunities on the part of the poor to obtain expert legal advice, it is idle to talk of equality before the law"-- Justice Chas. Evans Hughes
i get that part, i mean what good does it do?
i mean what good does it do to the public at large?
what is the point of a "fair trial" if you know he's guilty? what possible reason would a client tell his lawyer that he was guilty to help get him off?
i understand the law or the "ethics" but i don't understand it's purpose
Because you need to be able to walk into a lawyers office and tell him your story without worrying that what you tell him could come back to haunt you. Do you get that part? If you don't, I give up.Originally Posted by yermom
See, we (as in society) need people to use the legal system versus taking the law into their own hands. That purpose is advanced by making attorney-client confidentiality iron-clad.
Also, if defendants feared what they told the lawyer would not be held in strict confidence, they could be disinclined to say anything to their lawyer. That would mean the lawyer would be less effective at trial. Thus, that confidentiality is more important to society than whether one poor guy sits in jail who didn't do it.
Last edited by Okla-homey; 4/13/2008 at 02:11 PM.
"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever they can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser; in fees, expenses and waste of time." -- Abraham Lincoln, (1809-1865) Lawyer and President who saved the United States.
"Without opportunities on the part of the poor to obtain expert legal advice, it is idle to talk of equality before the law"-- Justice Chas. Evans Hughes
why do i need that?
why would i tell my lawyer that i shot a bunch of people, or cheated on my taxes, or whatever?
I Agree with the A/C privilege thingy
Now Yermom Think about this a Tad ok
The dude that spent 26 years In Prison , Innocent Of what he was Charged with , Wasnt Innocent Of Other Shat that was Just as bad . He didnt get Convicted of them tho
It do come down to JUSTICE
Quote
If God wanted Men to look women in the eyes, He wouldnt have gave em Boobs !
did i miss that in the story? i didn't see anything about him committing other crimes, just that he kinda looked like the other dude
No
I just sayin , Most Innocent Folk Aint !
Kinda Like friendly Fire .
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If God wanted Men to look women in the eyes, He wouldnt have gave em Boobs !
It keeps your attorney from being surprised at trial by evidence of your wrongdoing, for one.
For example, if you tell your attorney "Nah, I didn't do it-I was at my sister's house the whole time" then your attorney may base part of your defense on the fact that you have an alibi. Should the prosecution brings evidence to trial that shows that you were, in fact, at the crime scene, it's going to tend to destroy your attorney's case which depended, in part, on your alibi.
Further, it allows your attorney the opportunity to defend against a more serious charge by presenting a theory of the crime which would lead to less serious charges (or none at all.)
"The choices we discern as having been made in the Constitutional Convention impose burdens on governmental proceses that often seem clumsy, inefficient, even unworkable, but those hard choices were consciously made by men who had lived under a form of government that permitted arbitrary governmental acts to go unchecked." INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983) (Burger, C.J.)
I give up.
No, I'll try it this way.
When you go to the doctor, do you let him guess about what's wrong with you, or do you share with him where it hurts, how much and how you got your boo-boo?
"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever they can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser; in fees, expenses and waste of time." -- Abraham Lincoln, (1809-1865) Lawyer and President who saved the United States.
"Without opportunities on the part of the poor to obtain expert legal advice, it is idle to talk of equality before the law"-- Justice Chas. Evans Hughes
Unfortunately, civilization and governance are not advanced enough to come up with a system that works the way we believe it should every single time.
We've got a system that works as well as it does in large part because of the protection of attorney client priveledge. If that were gone, this particular guy might have gotten justice, and the innocent guy might never have gone to jail....but in that world, I think we would also find that on the whole, the ability of our justice system to do what it is supposed to do would be severely impaired.
Dammit, Ike, get to work on mental probes!
Altered quoted with "fixed" coming in 3..2..
"The choices we discern as having been made in the Constitutional Convention impose burdens on governmental proceses that often seem clumsy, inefficient, even unworkable, but those hard choices were consciously made by men who had lived under a form of government that permitted arbitrary governmental acts to go unchecked." INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983) (Burger, C.J.)
Well, Doc, I was in the garden pulling carrots and happened to slip and fall...
Homey and lawyers, tell if this is right.
You client says: "I did it."
You cannot snitch on your client,
BUT....
you also cannot present perjured testimony. Therefore, you cannot put your client on the stand to lie, and you cannot put on his mom's alibi testimony, which you know to be false. However, you can still defend the client effectively by challenging the admissibility of evidence or otherwise making the State prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. There are more sepcific rule abouyt how to dweal witha client who insists that you lie; in some cases you can or must withdraw from the representation before doing that.
yermom - I know that doesn't really address every issue, but you see the that privilege does have some "limits" - you need not, indeed CANNOT, become an accomplice to the crime. Lawyers have to walk the line. But it's true that the duty to the cleint often trumps "justice." As they say in France, "C'est la merde!"
You tell me it's the institution. Well, you know, you'd better free your mind instead.
(Shoo-bee doo-wah)
see, i read this as: ok, you see, i'm guilty, and here's how it did it. what loopholes can we find to get me out of this?
i mean, it's one thing if they searched without a warrant or something, i can see it
i understand the law, but you guys are being a bit vague here, give me an example or something
You're asking for a heckuva lot of thought for 10PM on a Sunday night!
You tell me it's the institution. Well, you know, you'd better free your mind instead.
(Shoo-bee doo-wah)
This is precisely why I never asked my client if he "did it". In order to present an effective defense, I did not need to know whether my client was not innocent. Rather, I needed to know what the State knows. When a jury says a defendant is "Not Guilty" it has little to do with innocence, or not. It is a statement that the State failed to meet the burden of proving my client's guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. (News media types usually say a defendant was found innocent, which is inaccurate. They do so out of fear that some typesetter will omit the "Not" and they will be faced with a defamation suit.)
If I know what evidence the State plans to present, I can prepare to meet that at trial. If, however, my client or my investigator has withheld from me certain facts, I get surprised in front of the jury and do not have the opportunity to investigate fully the evidence presented. That leaves me with little to do but break into a soft shoe routine.
If my client tells me he did what he is charged with, I can still defend the case, but I cannot put my client on the stand, knowing that he will lie under oath. That would be subornation of perjury.
I can assure you from my experience and the experience of watching other attorneys, that if you do NOT protect the confidences reposed in you by your client word will get out on the street and you will find yourself with a lot more time to post on SF.com.
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and good with ketchup.
I still think its wrong that this guy sat in prison for 26 years when there were at least 2 lawyers that KNEW he was innocent. That's not right, no matter which way you cut it. I also find it amazing that these two guys were in the pen together and the innocent guy actually knew the man that convicted the crime was in with him and spoke to him about it. I'm not an advocate of violence, but I can guarantee you that if I were the innocent guy and the guilty man was across the yard, he would admit it to authorities.
two words... Denny Crane
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