Miscellaneous

Attorney-client privilege ain't all it's cracked up to be

Well this is a really depressing story. Alton Long has been sitting in jail since 1982 for killing a McDonald's security guard. He's claimed innocence the whole time and now two lawyers have come forth to say that their former client admitted way back in '82 that he was, in fact, the murderer. But thanks to the attorney-client privilege, they couldn't speak out about it without his consent. They did get him to agree that they could speak about it after his death and so, now that he's died, they're out telling their story.

It's a real catch-22 these two lawyers were in -- ethically, they were bound to keep silent. But what about morally? Hell of a pickle, and while non-lawyers might say these guys are scumbags for not speaking up, it's really not that simple (as they say, if they had spoken up without their client's permission, they almost surely wouldn't have been able to testify in court anyway). The attorney-client privilege is an important and necessary thing, but it ain't always easy.

Full post as published by Quiz Law on March 21, 2008 (boomark / email).