Burnt Orange Report
News, Politics, and Fun From Deep in the Heart of Texas
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Burnt Orange ReportNews, Politics, and Fun From Deep in the Heart of Texas |
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November 15, 2004Who's the client?By Jim DallasSome folks in comments expressed concerns that asking Alberto Gonzales about Gov. Bush's jury information form would violate an attorney-client relationship, and therefore would be an "inappropriate" question. At the time this occurred, Alberto Gonzales was General Counsel to the Governor. This is a public office. Literally hundreds of documents from the OGC are public record; there is no "confidential" or "private" relationship. What are the OGC's responsibilities?
Nowhere in this description will you see "misleading judges so as to cover up Gov. Bush's drinking problems for purely political reasons." And for a good reason. That's not in the public interest. Wouldn't you want your attorney to look out for you? Posted by Jim Dallas at November 15, 2004 06:16 AM | TrackBackComments
He may have been Counsel to the Governor in his capacity as Governor, but that does not mean that he cannot offer legal advice to the person as an individual as well. The rules concerning what constitutes an attorney-client relationship for the purpose of confidentiality is broad: as long as the client has a reasonable expectation that he is seeking confidential legal advice, the duty of confidentiality arises. This is true even if the lawyer has not been hired yet, or is an "aside" converation" at a cocktail party. True, the Supreme Court rules that Clinton's conversations with his Counsel in re Lewinsky / White Water were not privilieged for the reasons you mentioned. (This is also the same Supreme Court that precipitated a right wing, judicial coup d'etat for Bush). This decision was an aberration, relied on Federal Rules of Evidence, not State Rules of Disciplinary Conduct, and would certainly have not been the ruling had it not been so politically motivated. I think the better angle is to probe him on the Geneva convention issue. If he claims a privivlege there, argue: 1) it has been waived because it was made public (presumably by Bush, the client); and 2) there is a crime/fraud exception to the rule. The crime/fraud exception is that you cannot counsel a client on how best to commit a crime in the future (as opposed to seeking advice on how to deal with the legal consequences of a past crime). The Abu-Graib situation can be argued to be a crime/fraud exception. Gonzalez will argue is was just advice on whether conduct would be considered criminal (which is confidential), but I thnk the memos went beyond that and encouraged the commission of acts that are criminal under international law. Posted by: WhoMe? at November 15, 2004 08:54 AMJim, I apologize for the comment "As a law student you should know that" at the end of my post that precipitated this discussion. It was snide and inappropriate. WhoMe? Posted by: WhoMe? at November 15, 2004 09:06 AMPost a comment
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