A Problem in Privilege

(We haven't studied professional ethics yet, but I would argue that the broad reading of privilege implied by goal 2 is necessary for client privilege to have any real meaning. Privilege could be even more broadly read to not allowing your actions to affect your client's situation in any way, legal or social, but I don't know how strictly it is meant to be construed)

When the innocent man goes to prison, your client has basically no chance of being brought up for the crime. Any action that would leave some chance of your client going to jail would therefore change your client's legal situation. Therefore, if your solution to 1 causes the investigation to remain open without providing immunity for your client, you automatically increase the chances that the crime in question will be pinned on your client, thus defeating 2.

So in order to achieve both goal 1 and 2, you must achieve goal three: 3) Either find a way to get immunity for your client, or make sure the investigation of the crime ends after achieving 1. This seems like a tall order.

Maybe you could work something out with the prosecutor - I don't know enough about how the politics of such things work though, and I can't imagine that the prosecutor would be ready to just drop the case. Compounding the problem is the fact that, according to the article, the client does not seem eager to get the innocent man off, so it might be hard to get his cooperation.

-- TheodoreSmith - 18 Mar 2008