Attorney Client Privilege/ Alton Logan Ethical Dilemma

[Devon]

I don't disagree with the point of your post. Any way you analyze the situation the prosecutors and L.E. achieved the conviction of an innocent man.

However, I also agree completely with the last part of your referenced quote: "What happened before does not mitigate the fact that they chose to let an innocent man take the rap for a murderer and sentenced him to a living death. The responsibility lies at their feet."

Right or wrong on my part, I hold a higher standard of responsibility for the attorneys because they KNEW Logan was innocent. The prosecutors and L.E. apparently BELIEVED Logan was guilty, unless there are nefarious motives on their part of which I am not aware.

IMO, the attorneys only 'knew' Logan was innocent to the extent of the evidence provided by the statements of Wilson and Hope. By the same measure, and also IMO, the investigating officers/prosecution also 'knew' that Logan was innocent of murder because they had discovered that the gun used was owned by, and found in the possession of, another person entirely - a man they eventually charged with 2 other murders. I wonder if the bullets found in the 2 murdered police officers matched the ones found in the McDonalds victims? Did anyone bother to check?

 

[Verité]

IMO, the attorneys only 'knew' Logan was innocent to the extent of the evidence provided by the statements of Wilson and Hope. By the same measure, and also IMO, the investigating officers/prosecution also 'knew' that Logan was innocent of murder because they had discovered that the gun used was owned by, and found in the possession of, another person entirely - a man they eventually charged with 2 other murders. I wonder if the bullets found in the 2 murdered police officers matched the ones found in the McDonalds victims? Did anyone bother to check?

The subtle and not so subtle shift of the blame to the prosecution as in the quote above is, I suspect, what we must now prepare to absorb as the KCA trial
begins full force. The likely fact that the defense knows the answer to many of our lingering questions will be swiftly and cunningly transferred to the fault
of the prosecution. Is there a bloody glove? Likely planted by LE!

 

[elementary]

IMO, the attorneys only 'knew' Logan was innocent to the extent of the evidence provided by the statements of Wilson and Hope. By the same measure, and also IMO, the investigating officers/prosecution also 'knew' that Logan was innocent of murder because they had discovered that the gun used was owned by, and found in the possession of, another person entirely - a man they eventually charged with 2 other murders. I wonder if the bullets found in the 2 murdered police officers matched the ones found in the McDonalds victims? Did anyone bother to check?

For argument's sake, it doesn't matter how it happened. What matters is that it did happen and the consequences thereof.

I believe this thread is about the ethical dilemma for the lawyers. Perhaps you need to start a new thread.

 

[Devon]

I believe this thread is about the ethical dilemma for the lawyers. Perhaps you need to start a new thread.

Snipped.

And that is what I was addressing - the opinions of some that the blame for Logan's incarceration lies at the feet of these attorneys. My point is that other people clearly knew throughout all of those 26 long years of wrongful imprisonment that Logan was not the perpetrator - the particular members of LE/the prosecution who failed to follow up key evidence within their knowledge. Should they not have spoken out later and risked their careers in doing so?

I don't think I'm OT, whereas opinions about what KC's defence are likely to throw at prosecutors is another subject altogether.

 

[elementary]

Snipped.

And that is what I was addressing - the opinions of some that the blame for Logan's incarceration lies at the feet of these attorneys. My point is that other people clearly knew throughout all of those 26 long years of wrongful imprisonment that Logan was not the perpetrator - the particular members of LE/the prosecution who failed to follow up key evidence within their knowledge. Should they not have spoken out later and risked their careers in doing so?

I don't think I'm OT, whereas opinions about what KC's defence are likely to throw at prosecutors is another subject altogether.

From my POV, we are addressing the issues surrounding the lawyers at the end state. If you want to address the issues of what happened before, with all due respect, this is not the thread for it.

If you are making a case that LE/the prosecution are the culprits, that therefore, you are willing to absolve the lawyers from any responsibility, then I beg to differ. They had a choice. Regardless of what went before and who screwed up and who was liable, the buck could have stopped with the lawyers. In fact, they could have blown the whistle on LE/prosecution for its alleged corruption. The buck didn't stop there and they didn't.

This matters especially currently because the high profile Andrea Lyon has supposedly upheld the cause for innocents, and yet, an innocent man, because of her informed and deliberate choices, was condemned to a living death. That is the real conundrum. And that is why currently this makes her a figure of moral outrage and suspicion.

 

[Verité]

Thanks, Elementary, for your discussion of what I see as "elementary" to this thread, added to the implicit recognition that we are discussing the
Caylee Anthony case, and the recent appointment of Andrea Lyon as defense attorney in that case. The intro to this thread says nothing about the
prosecutors and law enforcement of the Alton Logan case (which has no direct bearing on the KCA case).

 

[Devon]

Thanks, Elementary, for your discussion of what I see as "elementary" to this thread, added to the implicit recognition that we are discussing the
Caylee Anthony case, and the recent appointment of Andrea Lyon as defense attorney in that case. The intro to this thread says nothing about the
prosecutors and law enforcement of the Alton Logan case (which has no direct bearing on the KCA case).

Nothing about the Logan case, or about the issue of attorney/client privilege, or about the moral dilemma faced by attorneys in the circumstances of the Logan case has any direct bearing on the Caylee case and yet there's been 15 pages of posts on it. In particular, AL's involvement in the Logan case has no relevance whatsoever to her appointment as DP attorney to KC or to her future performance in that position. However, I shall now refrain from further 'derailing' a thread entitled 'Attorney Client Privilege/Alton Logan Ethical Dilemma.

 

[JBean]

This thread is to discuss the Alton Logan case and it's implications. The thread about Andrea Lyon was getting derailed by this conversation, so it has been given a thread of its own because people have a lot to say about this. It could be in the crimes forum, but it is in this forum so posters know it is here and available and will hopefully keep the discussion off the Lyon thread.

hope that helps.

 

[debbie0604]

I feel the need to respond to something stated in the above post: it was not their own careers that Wilson's lawyers were protecting. They were protecting the information that their client, Wilson, gave them, which they have legal, ethical and moral obligations to protect.

More importantly, and on a larger scale, please bear in mind that if these defense attorneys lose their licenses after breaching the attorney-client privilege, it will affect a great many people than just themselves: there are a great many potential accused persons, some of whom are likely innocent as well, who stand to lose the opportunity to have defense attorneys with the years of experience that Wilson's attorneys have/had defending them.

I have been reading here, however, not all of the posts because I've been working. This story is sad to me, that an innocent man would sit behind bars for 26 years and these attorneys knew he was innocent the entire time.

I understand how if they had breached the attorney-client priviledge that they would have been disbarred, and had I been in their shoes - I would have allowed that to happen to me, because I could not have knowingly allowed an innocent man go to prison. My question is - why couldn't the other people obtain other counsel elsewhere? They have a constitutional right to do so and if these attorneys were going to be disbarred, their clients would find another attorney, and I'm sure that there would be given enough time for them to do so before any "criminal charges" were filed against them or their practice was closed (and before the clients case went to court). Or am I wrong?

Morally, it's wrong on all levels. Personally I think they're crooked. JMO

 

[Chezhire]

This thread is to discuss the Alton Logan case and it's implications. The thread about Andrea Lyon was getting derailed by this conversation, so it has been given a thread of its own because people have a lot to say about this. It could be in the crimes forum, but it is in this forum so posters know it is here and available and will hopefully keep the discussion off the Lyon thread.

hope that helps.

Thanks JBean.

 

[Chezhire]

Nothing about the Logan case, or about the issue of attorney/client privilege, or about the moral dilemma faced by attorneys in the circumstances of the Logan case has any direct bearing on the Caylee case and yet there's been 15 pages of posts on it. In particular, AL's involvement in the Logan case has no relevance whatsoever to her appointment as DP attorney to KC or to her future performance in that position. However, I shall now refrain from further 'derailing' a thread entitled 'Attorney Client Privilege/Alton Logan Ethical Dilemma.

I feel your comments are on topic and I've been reading all of them. Please keep posting here - it's good for all to hear/read different points of view on the various ethical dilemas that this case raises.

 

[Chezhire]

Thank you for your honest and candid responses to my concerns. This response validates my initial beliefs.
This discussion has not really been about an abstract hypothetical situation. It has been about a very real innocent human being who was allowed to be caged like an animal for 26 long real years.

It has been about the very real absence of action by people who were in full knowledge of his innocence. Had the attorneys not, in fact, valued their own interests more than the 26 year wrongful incarceration of an innocent man, the horrible wrong could have been made right.

This lack of action on Alton Logan's behalf outrages me. In what may be viewed by some as unjust, I hold Andrea Lyon even more culpable than the two primary attorneys. By all accounts she has a brilliant legal mind as a professor at DePaul University as well as being a noted attorney. Her well publicized statement of “You see something wrong, you do something about it” now rings hollow as a ploy to enhance her image with an absence of moral conviction. This very intelligent, highly educated, legal scholar did, in fact, see something very wrong but contrary to her published statements, did nothing about it.

She has shown a thought process of creativity in crafting her reputation by being prepared to cry, get angry, or bully in front of a jury. Andrea Lyon has shown a propensity of thinking "outside of the box". I do not believe that someone who could envision the tactic of locking herself to the witness stand during her closing arguments, could not envision an effective path of movement to remedy what to all of us is a grave miscarriage of justice, resulting in an innocent man wasting a significant portion of his only life in prison.

In an earlier post, I shared some personal information from many years in my past. What I did not share in that post is the fact that I could have avoided every minute of my incarceration by doing something I viewed as dishonorable. I speak with a deep conviction when I remind you, once again, of the wisdom from The Holy Bible, I Peter 3:14 "But even if you should suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed"

My life has truly been blessed.

Bolded by me, Chezhire.

If your initial beliefs were that there would be at least one attorney out there/here at WS who respond to your question, which was, "[w]hat do you, as an attorney, believe would have happened to Alton Logan's incarceration once the court was made aware of his innocence?", with "he would have been released, some how, some way," then your beliefs have been validated.

Congratulations to you for sticking to whatever moral guns prevented you from doing whatever it was you deemed dishonorable.

 

[faefrost]

Nothing about the Logan case, or about the issue of attorney/client privilege, or about the moral dilemma faced by attorneys in the circumstances of the Logan case has any direct bearing on the Caylee case and yet there's been 15 pages of posts on it. In particular, AL's involvement in the Logan case has no relevance whatsoever to her appointment as DP attorney to KC or to her future performance in that position. However, I shall now refrain from further 'derailing' a thread entitled 'Attorney Client Privilege/Alton Logan Ethical Dilemma.

Yes and No. It has a direct bearing on the history, motivations honesty and credibility of KC's new DP attorney. Prior to this revelation AL was strongly believed to be the "Angel of Death Row". An incredibly respected legal scholar who supposedly always works to protect the innocent, albeit often using unorthodox courtroom theatrics.

The revelations of the Alton Logan case call alot of that into legitimate question. Now what the exact impact of this on the KC case is is unclear. But I know at this point as an informed observer I certainly will not be giving her the benefit of the doubt on any uncorroborated claims.

 

[Verité]

This thread is to discuss the Alton Logan case and it's implications. The thread about Andrea Lyon was getting derailed by this conversation, so it has been given a thread of its own because people have a lot to say about this. It could be in the crimes forum, but it is in this forum so posters know it is here and available and will hopefully keep the discussion off the Lyon thread.

hope that helps.

I'm still confused by the opening page/post of the thread which is about attorney/client privilege questions in the KCA case. Are we now to discuss
only the Alton Logan case? The forum title is headed Caylee Anthony.

 

[Marina2]

For smart lawyers, (re: wise, astute, clever et al), the starting point would be the prison (not the presiding judge). For example, PI lets prison guards know what they're after. That being, information that Wilson told another inmate he was the true murderer (privilege evaporates).

Wudge, it seems you've provided the solution for this ethical dilemma. Why, in 26 years, didn't these lawyers think to take this avenue? Were they not smart enough or what? I can't believe in all the supposed searching they did for a way to release the privileged information this didn't occur to them. It seems so simple. How likely is it that they could have made this happen? I realize it would have been just a start but a good one nonetheless. What a shame Logan didn't have you on his team.

 

[JBean]

I'm still confused by the opening page/post of the thread which is about attorney/client privilege questions in the KCA case. Are we now to discuss
only the Alton Logan case? The forum title is headed Caylee Anthony.

sure you can discuss attorney client privilege. I explained the reason this thread is in the Caylee forum and I hope that helps.

 

[Concerned Papa]

Bolded by me, Chezhire.

If your initial beliefs were that there would be at least one attorney out there/here at WS who respond to your question, which was, "[w]hat do you, as an attorney, believe would have happened to Alton Logan's incarceration once the court was made aware of his innocence?", with "he would have been released, some how, some way," then your beliefs have been validated.

Congratulations to you for sticking to whatever moral guns prevented you from doing whatever it was you deemed dishonorable.

I hope that my comment, which you referenced, did not seem as though I thought that you had agreed with my "belief" or opinion in any measure. I have greatly appreciated the honesty and candor with which you have answered my questions and discussed this matter with all of us. My respect for your knowledge of the law is profound.

I understand and can appreciate the ethical dilemma these attorneys found themselves thrust into. Had the attorneys, in fact, taken the action of revealing the knowledge they shared, there is no question that they would have suffered an injustice of their own. It is my opinion, however, that their injustice would not be equal to what was imposed on the life of Alton Logan.

Once you stated that through some manner or path created by revealing their knowledge, Alton Logan would have gained his freedom, my "belief" which you referenced seemed validated as to the likely result.

My opinion has always been that what I view as the right thing, should have been done. My "belief" that it would have been successful was the validation I was referring to.

Once again, Thank You.

 

[Wudge]

'In 1982, now 54 year-old Alton Logan was arrested for the murder of a security guard at a McDonald's in a robbery gone wrong. Witnesses identified Logan along with Edgar Hope as the two perpetrators of the crime. A few days later, however, while police were hunting down brothers Andrew and Jackie Wilson for an unrelated murder of two officers, a raid on Andrew's suspected hiding place unearthed a shotgun that tested positive as the gun used in the McDonald's shooting. However, because there were allegedly only two perpetrators in the McDonald's robbery/shooting, and because the police already had two suspects in custody, charges were never filed against Andrew Wilson in that case.'

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/evidenceprof/2008/01/in-1982-now-54.html

It seems the prosecutors also had a choice. They apparently had evidence that someone else was most likely involved, but did nothing! Where a man's freedom and possibly his life is at stake, was there not a moral obligation on the prosecution/investigating officers to seek out the truth, rather than make a case that appears to be based primarily on witness ID (notoriously unreliable at the best of times) and even though several members of Logan's family apparently testified as to his whereabouts at the relevant time? Did they get complacent or just consider it 'job done' when they'd managed to line up two suspects? Who knows, but Wilson's attorneys did not bring the charges that led to do the conviction - the failures/omissions/choices of others are responsible for that.

Officer Wickliffe was killed by a blast from a shotgun. The shotgun was the best available physical evidence. LE found it where Wilson had been staying along with the guns that had been taken from the two officers. Most importantly, ballistic tests matched the shotgun to a shotgun casing found at the MacDonalds restaurant.

Alton Logan's attorney, Jack Rimlock, tried to have the shotgun introduced into evidence, however, he was not permitted to do so.

(When the best available physical evidence works mightily against three eyewitnesses for the State ........ )

 

[Wudge]

Wudge, it seems you've provided the solution for this ethical dilemma. Why, in 26 years, didn't these lawyers think to take this avenue? Were they not smart enough or what? I can't believe in all the supposed searching they did for a way to release the privileged information this didn't occur to them. It seems so simple. How likely is it that they could have made this happen? I realize it would have been just a start but a good one nonetheless. What a shame Logan didn't have you on his team.

I previously posted that I believe many lawyers would not have asked Wilson the question that Kunz and Conventry did. Before anyone decides to test the ground where a snare in known to lie, it would be maze bright of them to ensure that their escape would be certain if they became ensnared.

Kunz and Coventry obviously would have had no guarantee that Wilson told anyone else, so what I've offered could not have represented "certain" escape to them.

I obviously do not know all that the attorneys considered before they queried Wilson. Still, if they had not done so, Logan would still be in prison.

 

[Chezhire]

Wudge, it seems you've provided the solution for this ethical dilemma. Why, in 26 years, didn't these lawyers think to take this avenue? Were they not smart enough or what? I can't believe in all the supposed searching they did for a way to release the privileged information this didn't occur to them. It seems so simple. How likely is it that they could have made this happen? I realize it would have been just a start but a good one nonetheless. What a shame Logan didn't have you on his team.

Getting a PI involved to "tell prison guards what you're after" is not a solution.

Why? For starters, it requires that one of Wilson's lawyers hire a PI and explain that they want said PI to go to the prison guards and ask them to try to obtain information about Wilson telling another inmate about committing the McDonald's shootings. There has been a breach of the attorney-client privilege because the only way that some future prisoner/cellmate, security guard, and PI knew to ask Wilson about the McDonald's shootings was because Wilson's attorneys shared at least part, if not all, of the privileged information

Therefore, even if Wilson opens his mouth and tells another inamte, guard or someone else, that he committed the McDonald's shootings, it only happened because his own lawyers breached the attorney-client privilege.

If this came to light, and Wilson hired a new attorney to depose the particular inmate/prisoner, who would then have to admit under oath that he'd been approached by the prison guard, who would be deposed and have to admit under oath that he'd been aapaproached by the PI, who'd be deposed and have to admit under oath that he'd been approached by Wilson's lawyers "to obtain information about Wilson telling another inamte that he'd committed the McDonald's shootings, it would all come out. Same result.

It's not that hard to depose inmates, prison guards, PI, etc., and one can see where this goes-or doesn't go-really quickly, I might add.