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This doesn't seem like a good precedent. If you rent a book on law from the library and take notes to help your case, your notes aren't protected? Your lawyer can make the same notes and they are? How can you mount a legal defense by yourself without a lawyer if the opposition can just access your notes? This isn't planning a crime, this is mounting your defense.
It doesn't smell right. It also smacks of protectionism of the legal profession. Making a precedent like this to preserve a space for lawyers and judges into perpetuity.
I think this is true though? Why would your notes to yourself be any more protected than anything else you might write, like a manifesto or whatever?
If you google legal cases on your personal computer on your personal time, then the prosecutor will put it on a powerpoint to show the jury as evidence of your guilt. If you pay $500 an hour for a lawyer to do it though, then you're fine.
PS: Watch the whole video. It's probably the greatest opening statement I've ever seen.
Would your legal chances really be that much better if you start asking lawyers about dismembering your murder victims and disposing of evidence? I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds like the crime-fraud exemption would presumably have applied in this sort of case. Are sleazy consigliere-types really common outside of Hollywood and TV fiction?
It does admittedly seem like some of the cases around the edges might be a bit fuzzy.
Generally speaking, yes. Suppose the authorities subpoenaed the phone records of a murder suspect and found that shortly after the murder had been committed, the suspect called an attorney and and a few lengthy phone calls. If these calls had been made at roughly the same time that the suspect was on television begging for help finding his missing family member, then obviously it would look suspicious, but what can the authorities do? If they call the attorney, it's very likely the attorney will decline to be interviewed. Even if the DA's office approves a subpoena, it's pretty likely that attorney will move to quash the subpoena and the motion will be granted. Knowing that this avenue of investigation is unlikely to be productive, it's doubtful that the authorities would even pursue it.
That being said, I think most attorneys would not be very helpful if they got the sense they were being used to help plan a crime. Or even if you asked questions about hypotheticals involving dismembered family members.
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Common, maybe not. But lawyers with questionable ethics who will go to great lengths to protect clients for the right fee? Well, yeah. That's why there are some private criminal defense attorneys billing over $1k per hour and the clients don't blink at it.
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I think your lawyer has the option to recuse themselves if they have clear proof you are guilty. They also have the duty not to lie, and not to attempt to deceive the court. So if you start talking to your lawyer about dismembering your murder victims, your lawyer is likely to try to persuade you to plead guilty and they will also refuse to do many of the things that they would do for you if your guilt were actually in doubt. You're pretty much sabotaging yourself.
See e.g. https://barristerblogger.com/advocacy-tips/ethics/
That said, asking something like ChatGPT for legal advice seems broadly like it shouldn't be used against you, at least unless you say something like 'I'm sure they'll never find two of the bodies, and the last one is going to be too rotten to identify, what's the call here?'.
Entirely incorrect for U.S. attorneys. I could have a client arrested for DUI who confessed to me that he dismembered his entire family and buried them in the crawlspace, and I could not divulge that information. Any discussion about past crimes is strictly privileged.
I do not get to withdraw from a case even if there is strong evidence my client is guilty and he confesses to me that he is guilty. If that were true, I wouldn't have much to do as a public defender. I have to defend the case to the best of my ability regardless of the strength of the evidence.
For future crimes, I am required to disclose anything my client says if I reasonably believe there is a realistic chance of physical harm coming to someone. I have the option, but am not required, to disclose statements from a client about future crimes that do not pose a risk of physical harm but some other kind of harm.
Understood, thank you.
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Damn, good call.
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