Legal News

60 Minutes Reports Legal Ethics Head-Scratcher

By Dan Slater

For the Law Blog, some of the hardest legal ethics conundrums arise in situations where the lawyer’s answer is wholly at odds with what the rest of the world expects. 60 Minutes featured such a story last night.

In 1982, Alton Logan was convicted of killing a security guard at a Chicago-area McDonald’s. Despite testimony that Logan was at home when the murder occurred, a jury found him guilty of first degree murder. Meanwhile, two attorneys — Dale Coventry and Jamie Kunz — knew Logan was innocent. How? Because their client, Andrew Wilson, whom they were defending for killing two policemen, confessed to them that he had also killed the McDonald’s security guard. But because of the attorney-client privilege, Coventry and Kunz kept Wilson’s confession to themselves. Logan, wrongly convicted, has been in jail for the past 26 years.

When CBS correspondent Bob Simon suggested that most people would’ve come to Logan’s rescue, Coventry explained: “Well, the vast majority of the public apparently believes that, but if you check with attorneys or ethics committees or you know anybody who knows the rules of conduct for attorneys, it’s very, very clear. It’s not morally clear. But we’re in a position where we have to maintain client confidentiality, just as a priest would or a doctor would. It’s just a requirement of the law. The system wouldn’t work without it.”

Kunz and Coventry decided that if the jury gave Logan the death penalty, they’d speak up, but that if he got life in prison, they would adhere to the rules of attorney-client privilege. “Morally there’s very little difference and we were torn about that,” said Coventry, “but in terms of the canons of ethics, there is a difference, you can prevent a death.”

The attorneys say they were so tormented over Logan’s imprisonment that they convinced Wilson to let them reveal, after Wilson’s death, that Wilson was the real killer. Late last year, Wilson died. The two attorneys finally took their affidavit out of the lockbox, and called Logan’s lawyer, public defender Harold Winston — who agrees that Kunz and Coventry had to remain silent until Wilson died.

Today, according to CBS, a Chicago judge will decide whether Logan gets a new trial, and Illinois’ attorney general will decide whether to let him out without one.

LB Loyals, anyone think Kunz and Coventry’s reasoning was off-base? Or did they have it right?

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).