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 school curriculum that addresses legal ethics and professional responsibility.
Legal Ethics provides an overview of this topic, highlighting that the issues surrounding professional conduct are not always black and white and raising interesting questions about how lawyers act and what their role entails.
That duty is set forth in Rule 1.6 of the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct. It is believed that the case was a contributing factor to the inclusion of “death and substantial bodily injury” as an exception to the duty of confidentiality under Rule 1.6.
What are Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility? Legal ethics is a term used to describe a code of conduct governing proper professional behavior, which establishes the nature of obligations owed to individuals and to society.
The lawyers wanted to tell the authorities about the kids. Obviously letting the parents know the fate of their children would have crushed them, but it also would have let the parents have the peace of knowing what actually happened. In addition, the parents would get to know that their children’s killer wasn’t just in custody, but had actually confessed to the crimes. The parents would be able to get some measure of justice for their murdered children.
There was just one problem with sharing the information about the victims with the families, the prosecutors, with the media, with anyone: The attorney/client relationship. Mr. Garrow had only told his lawyers about his crimes, and his lawyers determined they were duty-bound to keep that information confidential.
This comment stands for two interrelated principles: 1) A lawyer can’t do their job effectively unless a client feels free to share everything without fear of future punishment or reprisal, and 2) society is benefitted when a lawyer is able to do their job effectively.
Among legal ethicists, few situations have received as much attention as the “buried bodies case,” a disquieting story in which the specter of a serial killer’s crimes lingered even after his conviction. The murderer in question had told his attorney—in confidence—where his victims’ bodies were located. When pressed to disclose this information, however, the lawyer refused (citing his ethical duty to maintain confidentiality). The case hinged on the concept of attorney-client privilege: the stance that no matter what a client discloses privately, with only a few narrow exceptions, the attorney may not turn on their client and breach confidence.
To begin with, a core principle of the legal field is the position that proper procedures are inextricably bound up with the pursuit of justice. While many people find it incredibly frustrating when these procedural rules seem to defy common sense, more often than not they reflect William Blackstone’s old adage that it is better for ten guilty men to walk free than for an innocent man to suffer unjustly. This axiom undergirds the entire structure of the American legal system and touches, in one way or another, all participants within that system.
By contrast, a police detective’s vocation may be to use all his faculties to serve his neighbor through rigorous investigation to the fullest extent allowed by the law. The detective may gather evidence to ensure that a given lawyer’s client is sent to prison for decades, and he is certainly not acting immorally in doing so. In a world where no human is infallible or omniscient, life demands a balance—or tension—between extremes: both the lawyer and the detective may be acting in accordance with their vocations. Both are serving their neighbors by playing their distinct roles with excellence, even though they appear to be working at cross-purposes. Both are ultimately oriented toward achieving justice in the broader sense, even if they find themselves on opposite sides of a given lawsuit.
Similarly, the lawyers in question could have resigned from the bar and spoken up if their consciences did not allow them to maintain their professional obligations – in the same way that a police officer in a high-crime area might relinquish their gun and badge if they realized they were unable to take the lives of other human beings under any circumstance.
The appropriate way to do justice is not to victimize (or risk victimizing) more innocent people, but instead to follow the rules for investigation to which everyone has previously agreed. This general framework also applies to the professional ethics context. For instance, compromising attorney-client privilege would mean that an innocent client’s embarrassing admissions to his attorney—whether or not they are relevant to the matter at hand—could be dragged out into court. Among other problems, this would leave untrained individuals vulnerable to aggressive smear tactics. When one begins to compromise the integrity of one’s promises, the slope is slippery indeed…and the consequences can be far-reaching.
Well, had the lawyers assisted Bennette in moving or disposing the body, that would be unlawful, because they (the lawyers) would be hindering the government above and beyond what the defendant himself did.
It's important that criminal defense lawyers provide zealous advocacy, because we punish those convicted of serious felonies quite harshly. To be sure, I don't mean to suggest that the harsh sentences are never justified. I do mean to say that, given how harsh prison can be, we as a society should be as reasonably sure as we can that we are punishing the right people. Mistakes may be inevitable, but if, at the end of the day, a convicted defendant was ably represented by lawyers whose onlyfocus was defending their client, we can feel better that we minimized the chances of wrongly convicting someone.
Legal ethics is a term used to describe a code of conduct governing proper professional behavior, which establishes the nature of obligations owed to individuals and to society.
Consider meeting with an attorney specializing in legal ethics and professional responsibility if you have any questions or concerns.
If your attorney has violated any of these rules, or you have reason to believe your attorney has not acted in a professional manner, you should consider filing a complaint with the corresponding state bar association. For more serious violations, particularly when poor counsel results in an unfavorable outcome for your case, you might consider filing a legal malpractice lawsuit.
Malpractice: Although these claims are very difficult to prove, lawyers may be sued if no reasonable attorney would have made the same errors (and those errors caused injury).
Today's show centres on the lawyers Frank Armani and Frank Belge, who were pilloried for something they did, or more precisely did not do, when representing their client on a murder charge. They were publicly harassed and threatened; charges were laid and later dropped against one of them, and their careers were destroyed, though Frank Armani later rebuilt his legal practice.
If the lawyer were to spill the beans on what his client had told him about a crime that he had committed in the past, then all of a sudden the lawyer would be an agent of the police department or the prosector's office, and would be essentially helping to convict the client.
Lisa Lerman: Certainly questions have been raised about it, but I don't think so. In fact at least in the States, probably over 95% of all criminal charges are resolved by plea bargaining, just as civil cases are almost all resolved through a negotiated settlement. And it's not like a corrupt behind-closed-doors unlawful deal making, the lawyers actually have information that will help the prosecutors to resolve other cases and they're willing to give it up with their client's consent in exchange for a promise that Garrow would go to a mental hospital rather than to prison. And Garrow was actually terrified. He said to the lawyers, 'Do you know what happens to child molesters in prison?' You know, he knew that he would be raped and/or murdered by the other prisoners.
Alan Saunders: Ethically this is slightly bizarre, isn't it, because if you hypnotise your client, I mean fair enough, everything your client tells you is protected by attorney-client privilege, but it's rather odd that you hypnotise your client who may then tell you things that he didn't intend to tell you.
Lisa Lerman: In the US nowadays, the rules have changed a little bit. The rule now says if you know that your client is going to commit a crime that would cause severe injury or death to another person, you're allowed to reveal the information. But even now in the US, the rule as to a crime that was committed in the past, is you're representing somebody on this charge, it's your job to protect those confidences. So they didn't really have any choice, except to keep the information to themselves.
Alan Saunders: Now you present this case as an ethical dilemma to your students. So when you take them to this point in the case, what are the options available to them?
And when Armani eventually agreed to take on this murder case and went to see Garrow in the hospital, (Garrow had been apprehended by the police and had been shot in the course of that chase, so he was in the hospital) and Armani started asking him about these cases and Garrow was telling Armani such as he could remember, but he couldn't remember anything. And so Armani believing that he really needed the information in order to represent Garrow, Armani had a little casual training in hypnosis, and so he persuaded his client to allow the lawyer to hypnotise him, and while under hypnosis Armani told Garrow that when he woke up he would remember everything that had happened in the last couple of months.