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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.
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.
Massive difference here between the UK and the US. Here in the UK if your client confesses to you that he is guilty you don't have to explicitly say that to the court but if he then tries to even imply during the trial that he isn't guilty you are professionally obligated to withdraw immediately (it's called being professionally embarrassed), otherwise you risk getting struck off. You don't have to explain that you're withdrawing because of the client lying but if you don't provide a different (truthful reason) the court judge, who is likely a former barrister themselves, will immediately put 2 and 2 together and your client's credibility will be utterly shot, at which point the case is as good as over.
Lesson: Don't lie to your lawyer in the UK, you may be paying them, but their primary duty is to the court, not to you (applies to both civil and criminal cases). I'd argue it works better than the US and is a good middle ground between them and China, which doesn't even have proper legal professional privilege.
I don't understand. In your example the defendant didn't lie to their lawyer, they lied to the court. If the defendant is guilty but has opted for a trial then that fact alone is an effort to imply he isn't guilty, and presumably everything else he does will be in service of the same end too. Otherwise why not skip the trial and plead guilty?
The way I read it the lesson is "don't admit to your UK lawyer that you're guilty if you expect them to argue for your innocence". No?
Fair enough, I agree "don't admit to your UK lawyer that you're guilty if you expect them to argue for your innocence" is a more accurate reading than what I said the lesson was. Merely lying to your lawyer and it coming out during the trial that you lied to your lawyer is actually (perhaps surprisingly) significantly less bad than the earlier situation because technically your barrister can still argue that the prosecution has not discharged the burden of proving your guilt "beyond reasonable doubt", however of course if you tell your lawyer that you're guilty you suddenly tie their hands significantly in what they can say to the court without breaching their professional duties.
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