For nearly 26 years, the affidavit was sealed in an envelope and stored in a locked box, tucked away with the lawyer’s passport and will. Sometimes he stashed the box in his bedroom closet, other times under his bed.
It stayed there — year after year, decade after decade…
It said…an innocent man was behind bars. His name was Alton Logan. He did not kill a security guard in a McDonald’s restaurant in January 1982.
“In fact,” the document said, “another person was responsible…”
But, the ethics of lawyer-client privilege – as defined by the great state of Illinois in the Land of Justice for All – allowed two public defenders to keep hidden the evidence that could free an innocent man.
Oh yeah, sure! It’s all about legal ethics. You can bet that if some dude, this lawyer was appointed to represent, had admitted to kill that lawyers wife, said lawyer would be singing his ass off to the cops. This isn’t about Justice, or defending some privilege between lawyer and client. It’s about propping up a system of shakey ethics and rules. Rules that often get tossed aside when its some lawyer or judge’s ass that compromised. Then, like with doctors, records get lost, or changed. Rules bend, jurisdictions crossed. Just rent Al Pacino’s “And Justice for All”, and you’ll understand.
bobbo,
I have a very hard time believing there wasn’t a way for those lawyer to do the right thing an still remain faithful to their oath.
Aren’t side deals and practical compromises done ALL THE TIME? Surely something could have been worked out in this case.
As a person working with the (Boston) public defender’s office, I can tell you – side deals are not made “all the time” at all.
To respond to a few legal idiocies that have been pointed out:
#13 – “You don’t think officers of the court have an ethical obligation to make sure someone they know for a fact is innocent, isn’t punished? They don’t have to implicate their client — just convince the DA that the defendant is innocent.”
The problem here is one of slippery slope. You can make a rule that says “It’s ok for a lawyer to tell on his client if it’ll save some third party from facing legal repercussions”, but then you have a situation where the client has no reason to trust his lawyer with any information. (Believe me, these communities tend to be small, even in the big cities. Courts operate in a very district level way, with the same people cycling in and out. So it’s a big chance that a client telling you a minor note on a crime here or there would have a big impact on someone else’s case. Most of the time, you try to do what you can to help a brother defense attorney out. But it’s our job to do what’s best for our client and trust that the other defense attorney is good enough to keep an innocent man out of jail.)
So you can either have a system where we don’t trust people charged with crimes – at which point we might as well do away with due process altogether – or we accept that sometimes, bad situations will happen, and it’ll be the lawyer’s moral choice whether to risk his job or to accept his ethical duty.
#21) “It’s all about legal ethics. You can bet that if some dude, this lawyer was appointed to represent, had admitted to kill that lawyers wife, said lawyer would be singing his ass off to the cops.”
This could, theoretically happen, but at this point the lawyer is no longer bound by his ethical responsibility to his client, because by default he can no longer represent him to the best of his ability. Ergo, if you ever kill a lawyer’s wife, never tell him about it, because the proper human response to a loved one being killed is to seek vengeance.
See, the lawyer and the courts and all that are meant to be impartial – IE, to be beyond seeking simple vengeance. That’s why the ethical rules exist – to ensure that even if you don’t like your client, you are able to represent him to the best of your ability. It’s when there’s a personal stake involved where the lawyer is no longer bound by the rules of the lawyer/client relationship, because you violate that impartial/impersonal barrier.
#22: “I have a very hard time believing there wasn’t a way for those lawyer to do the right thing an still remain faithful to their oath.”
There wasn’t – and if you read the article it’s not like they didn’t try.
However, what I disagree with then is that you’re faced with a moral dilemma beyond the ethical one. If they revealed what their client told them, they can save an innocent man – more than likely at the expense of their job and future legal career. (And, believe me, if you’re working for the public defender you’re living paycheck to paycheck.) They could have done it, and I’m honestly not sure what I would have done, but there would have been a lot of fallout.
#22 again) “Aren’t side deals and practical compromises done ALL THE TIME?”
Dear God, no. Stop thinking like every lawyer is Michael Clayton. Especially with a public defender’s office. A criminal defense attorney is in the worst possible negotiating position that a person can be – he’s likely got a hostile client (since the client didn’t get to pick his lawyer, he was just saddled with the lawyer in court), bad evidence, and a DA can honestly give two shits. This isn’t a friendly community where DAs and PDs get along famously and play golf on Sundays. It’s an adversarial system, and as much as we smile across tables at each other, shake hands, and play nice, there’s a lot of resentment from one side to the other.
I mean – think about it a second. It’s your job as a DA to make sure the people prosecuted (guilty or not) go to jail. That’s how you get good job reviews – by the number of convictions you get, compared to the number of trials you go into. It’s my job as a defense attorney to make sure my client either doesn’t even go near a trial or, if he does, doesn’t get convicted. In other words, in a very real sense, it’s my job to make sure you can’t get a good review in yours. How do you humanly maintain friendliness after that?
But the more important question is why would you even listen when a defense attorney comes up to you and, absent hard evidence, tells you he thinks the man you’re prosecuting is innocent. Here’s a news flash: All of us defense attorneys think our clients are actually innocent of the crimes they’re charged with! Sure, they’re certainly not upstanding citizens, but we constantly face a barrage of trumped up charges, police adding details after-the-fact, racism, sexism, class segregation, and every possible civil liberty violation you can think of. It’s our job to deal with it.
#18, Mister Mustard – you clearly have no idea how your legal system works. Just… don’t.
The people involved here were defense attorneys. Had they been DAs they would have been required to turn over the evidence as exculpatory – otherwise it’d be what we call a Brady violation, which is grounds for an immediate remand, if not outright dismissal of charges. They were trying to do their best for their client and avoid him getting the death penalty – and if you think that a person who doesn’t want another person to die “shouldn’t be trusted with monitoring Dumpster(R) usage, much less have people’s lives in their hands” I would hate to live in a world with a fascist like you as dictator.
let’s see
ruin my career or let a man rot for almost thirty years?
personally, if you believe in a god, you have to say that it would be time to start a new career.
or you be like one of the a-holes on this list who think it’s okay to let a man rot in jail.
whatever.
#22–GregA==you are just starting to wrestle with the real issue.
Do you think the top article was made up? Some lawyer sat on the evidence for years because he couldn’t think of a way to reveal the information??
That’s why at post #1 I suggest a rule change to provide for situations like this.
BTW–no change in any issue if the client is your wife’s murderer. Maybe more motivation to violate the ethics, but no change to any of the underlying issues.
No change if you refuse to represent the client or stop representing him. The duty ((anyone understand what a “duty” is???)) continues.
In other words, with full knowledge that the rationale for this ethical rule has some logic to it, some rational ends, and has been followed for centuries–I still think it is wrong and there are ways to modify it. Its only one such rule among dozens. It forms the foundation for the old saying “The law is an ass.”
#24, That’s easy to say from a web browser.
I think the bigger question is how did the innocent man get prosecuted in the first place?
We can’t build a legal system based on confessions made to one’s own lawyer.
#27–Ron==well, I’ll bet there was “evidence” against him and his alibi wasn’t believed.
Now, how is having a very rarely used exception for attorney initiated information and request for immunity become a basis for a legal system?
You sound like the type of status quo advocate that allows travesties like this to continue.
#27, Ron,
Good comment.
Can anyone point to a prosecutor other than Nifong, cop, or Judge who knowingly sent an innocent man to jail or even continued the prosecution?
#29–Catshit==the hole in your argument is “Knows.” Very hard to know.
What does happen “all the time” is prosecutions proceed when everyone knows the evidence is not very good. “Let the jury decide.”
After the trial, appeals based on actual innocense are extremely difficult. “Can’t give you two bites at the apple, shoulda had a better lawyer, got to be an end sometime, an appeal assumes the finder of fact is correct and only reviews procedures.” etc.
In fact, even what I propose is frought with difficulties. I can see an underground business spring up with people giving false confessions under seal of immunity.
Life can be quite unfair and its hard to imagine anything otherwise? Maybe brain scans is the answer?
#30 “I can see an underground business spring up with people giving false confessions under seal of immunity.”
It already exists. They are called “Jailhouse Snitches”. There have been many cases were police fed a snitch info so they can claim in court to have heard a jailhouse confession.
I don’t known if you remember the notorious case of “Mr. White”, a snitch that demonstrated to a LA Times reporter how he was able to get inside info about any cellmate in order to manufacture a confession. He would then leverage that into getting him off for whatever offense he was in jail for. In his case, he just took advantage of the incompetence of the DA’s office.
Yet, in case after case, the DA used Mr. White and his magic ability to get criminals to confess to him in order to prosecute people. They never questioned why until Mr. White decided to brag to a reporter.
#30, Bobbo,
Ok, maybe “knows” is a bad choice of words if you wish to play semantics. If a cop or prosecutor fails to follow through on a line of evidence because they are afraid of where it might lead is just as bad as knowing. Too often a “person of interest” becomes the focus to the exclusion of all else.
I think we are on the same page with this, just maybe different paragraphs.
#31, Ron,
Good point.
Hmmmm so much for the “good ole boy” conspiracy knowledge seen with my own eyes and ears! How odd and strange everyone is buying into some mere ethical clause over the decisions of an innocent man’s freedom! Caged like a wild animal, large costly legal expenses, exposed to public ridicule and hatred! So much for the lawyer jokes everyone finds humerous! It’s okay to claim incompetent legal representation without a lawyer getting a slap or scratch on his record or disbarred! It’s okay for lawyers to talk back and forth to cops, judges and other court workers! But God for bid a client speaks and this dude gets the duct tape, super glue and a strong box out and seals it away? Oh my God, what a demanding word for a lawyer to scream out and silently beg to be called an “asshole” and clouds it to be an ethical hero? Justice vs. Communist tactics of false explainations? Still the same; the finger nails are ripped out and are not growing back!!!
I need help, but in this case it is the D.A. office who hid alot of evidence. They had the real suspect and they and the police covered and kept evidence that would prove my son inoccent. The dna alone would have proved my son inoccent since they say that is what proves them inoccent. I would like to know who can help me and get the real person that did the crime. A police informant,he was protected by the police and D.A. he is free when he should be in prison. They proved he was there with DNA. And they have a tape where police are telling what to say. They kept it from the jury, they didn’t let them hear it.There are lots of things they did. I need to talk to someone and tell them everything. Please help me, my son is inocennt, HELP ME< HELP ME PLEASE
#34–Connie==your son has an attorney, court appointed or otherwise. He has a duty to make sure everything you say is presented to the judge/jury. Talk to him about how to get this evidence before the judge. If he won’t do it, then find another attorney who will. Absent that, less effectively you go to the newspapers or file complaints with the Office of the DA.
You will need to present the facts in a very logical, verifiable way, that can be explained by the lawyers.
Failing that, go to lawschool, become a lawyer, and file appeals. I’ve seen several movies lately on the LifeTime channel where that was the plot.