08 Aug 2018. In the summer of 1973, four college-aged friends set out on a camping trip in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. What happened over the next hours led to a case that generated a national debate about confidentiality between an attorney and client. Commonly referred to as the “Buried Bodies Case,” it is an essential part of law ...
The Buried Bodies Case, also known as the Lake Pleasant Bodies Case, is a mid-1970s upstate New York court case where defense attorneys Frank H. Armani and Francis Belge kept secret the location of the bodies of two women murdered by their client, Robert Garrow, Sr.. Ahead of trial for an unrelated murder, Garrow confessed to his lawyers that he had murdered two missing …
A recent case in Portland has once again put the spotlight on the professional and ethical obligations of criminal defense lawyers. 17-year-old Parrish Bennette Jr. pleaded guilty on Thursday (Jan. 17, 2013) to killing his then-girlfriend, Yashanee Vaughn, in 2011. After shooting her to death, he moved her body and buried it somewhere secret.
Apr 20, 2016 · The state bar tries to disbar Armani for failing to disclose his knowledge of the bodies to the police and also attempting to plea bargain with knowledge of the other two murders. Years later Garrow escapes from prison and a hit list is found in his cell with Armani’s name on it but Garrow is shot and killed by the police before Garrow could carry anything out.
Buried Bodies Case. The Buried Bodies Case, also known as the Lake Pleasant Bodies Case, is a mid-1970s upstate New York court case where defense attorneys Frank H. Armani and Francis Belge kept secret the location of the bodies of two women murdered by their client, Robert Garrow, Sr. Ahead of trial for an unrelated murder, ...
The Buried Bodies Case attracted significant attention in the mid-1970s in the throes of the Watergate scandal. Several legal scholars believe Armani and Belge acted ethically in refraining from sharing their client's confession. During Watergate, the American Bar Association (ABA) began reconsidering attorneys' ethical obligations. Meanwhile, law schools too began reconsidering the form of legal ethics in their curriculum.
Armani and Belge proposed a plea bargain using the information they had uncovered ahead of trial. They told the prosecutor that they might be able to provide information to help authorities find the missing women if Garrow were sentenced to life in a mental hospital rather than prison. The prosecutor refused.
The central question Armani and Belge faced was whether to disclose the location of the missing women's bodies. Disclosure of their discoveries could have implicated their client in the women's murders.
Armani and Belge faced criminal and ethical proceedings that were later found to be unwarranted. People v. Belge. A grand jury investigated the attorneys' conduct. Belge was indicted for allegedly violating two state public health laws by failing to disclose his discovery of the dead bodies. In People v.
The lawyers photographed the remains of both women. Belge moved Hauck's body to ensure a dismembered part was included in the photograph. They later destroyed the photographs, the record of their conversation with Garrow, and the diagram he drew. Belge and Armani told no one about their discoveries.
While ethical rules are determined by each state, portions of the ABA's Model Rules of Professional Conduct have been adopted by 49 states. All states have some ethical duty of confidentiality in their code of professional responsibility.
In 1973 Robert Garrow was arrested for murder, after a very substantial manhunt. He was appointed two attorneys to represent him in that case: Frank Armani and Francis Belge. In the course of their representation, their client told the attorneys that he was responsible for additional murders.
First off, I had heard of this case before I listened to the podcast. As the podcast mentions, this situation is still taught today in law schools. A lawyer’s duty to his or her client can be at odds with general moral principles of society.
And if that’s the case, the conversation turns to how we deal with people accused of committing crimes. Keep in mind we’re not talking about punishment and sentencing and guilt and innocence here.
Let’s look at it from another angle. Do we want our prisons half-full, but confident that everyone in there is supposed to be there? Or do we want them filled to capacity with the innocent mingling with the guilty? I am in the former camp. So were our founding fathers.
Meritorious Claims and Contentions. A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law.
In the guilt or innocence phase of the case (which is really not the one where a lawyer is likely to be the most effective in most cases like this one), the primary strategy is to force the prosecution to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt and to point out at trial every way that the evidence fails to do so.
7. In most jurisdictions, the lawyer would have two options: Resign from counsel and never talk about the confession. Take the counsel and defend the client as best they can without mentioning that they know the client is guilty. In most jurisdictions, there is something called "attorney client privilege".
The position is similar in England and Wales (note that Scotland and Northern Ireland are different jurisdictions with different rules). Lawyers in England and Wales have, in essence, two duties: 1 A duty to the court 2 A duty to their client
It is not the duty of the defense counsel to determine the guilt or innocent of his client. For as defense counsel, it is legally and ethically defend his client regardless of his guilt of not which is beyond the job of the lawyer to determine.
And besides: A defense attorney who knows their non-guilty-pleading client is guilty can actually go through the process without ever explicitly claiming that the client is innocent. In order to convict someone for a crime, the prosecuter must prove the clients guilt beyond reasonable doubt.