Alaska limits prosecutorial discretion to enter into plea bargaining in some cases

"A Public Defender" is reporting that Alaska has decided to limit prosecutorial discretion to negotiate plea agreements in certain types of cases.  Go here for the details.

Article criticizing decisions that found converstations within a firm regarding possible malpractice are privileged

Last month I reported that the Massachusets Supreme Court recently found that confidential communications between law firm attorneys and a law firm's in-house counsel concerning a malpractice claim asserted by a current client of the firm are protected from disclosure to the client by the attorney-client privilege.  See here.  A few days later, Georgia reached the same result.  See here.   The Legal Ethics Forum had a debate  on the issue here and here.  Now, thanks again to the LEF, here is a link to an article by Richard Zitrin (professor at UC-Hastings) criticizing the decisions which he refers to as bad for clients who expect loyalty from the firms they employ.

How not to practice law: ask client to pay for legal services with sex

Here is the most recent addition to our running list of examples of how NOT to practice law. This is one we have seen before and it should be pretty obvious... but it continues to happen. Go here for the full story.

Connecticut Law Tribune editorial on prosecutorial misconduct

I often complain that courts do not take prosecutorial misconduct seriously enough.  To its credit, The Connecticut Law Tribune does.  It recently published an editorial, criticizing all the arms of the criminal justice system for their complicity in repeated instances of prosecutorial misconduct during closing arguments by Connecticut prosecutors.

Thanks to "a public defender blog" for the link. Go here for their comments on the article.

Criticism of District Attorney following Zimmerman trial

Jonathan Turley has posted his opinion on the conduct of the District Attorney in charge of the Zimmerman prosecution.  He states that the DA's office "stands accused of serious allegations of withholding evidence from the defense. I have previously said that I view those allegations as highly credible and worthy of sanctions. She is also facing a whistleblower lawsuit after she fired an IT specialist who revealed that her office was withholding evidence in the Zimmerman case" and concludes that "[a]t a minimum, [the DA's] actions and comments strike me as highly unprofessional." Read the article here.

More on the Zimmerman case

Again, as expected there are more comments on the Zimmerman verdict.  Here are links to some I saw today (with brief quotes to give you an idea of the content of each).  Click on the links to read the full articles:

Zimmerman prosecutors further beclown themselves (Legal Ethics Forum)
("the prosecutors who showed such bad judgment in the Zimmerman matter do it again, just in case you had any doubts. When you bring the wrong charge, try the wrong case, and decisively lose the case, you shouldn't mug for the camera, cya, talk about how well you would have done if the trial had been completely different, mock the acquitted accused for a supposed lack of courage, disparage the defendant for exercising his constitutional rights, etc.")

Angela Corey Fires Whistleblower Who Revealed The Withholding Of Evidence From Zimmerman Defense
("the prosecution team of Angela Corey in the Zimmerman case have been accused of repeated prosecutorial abuse in the withholding of evidence from the defense. ...Corey has been widely criticized for over-charging the case ... and her team was widely criticized for putting on a weak case for prosecution. Now, before [a ruling] on her office’s withholding of evidence, Corey has fired [the person who disclosed it]. His termination before a ruling on the alleged prosecutorial abuse only strengthens his claims as a whistleblower and throws the ethics of Corey and her office in great question.")

Law and Legend: How The Zimmerman Case Was Lost By The Prosecution (Jonathan Turley)
("Criminal cases often make for easy and dangerous vehicles for social expression. They allow longstanding social and racial issues to be personified in villains and victims. We simplify facts and characters — discarding those facts that do not fit our narrative. Zimmerman and Martin became proxies in our unresolved national debate over race.")

Can a lawyer advice a client to "clean up" a Facebook page?

There are a lot of stories out there about lawyers looking for evidence in clients' and opponents' Facebook pages, so it is interesting that I saw two stories this week on whether a lawyer can advice a client to delete material from the client's social media sites. One says it is ok, the other one argues it would not be.  At first sight, it appears the stories contradict each other, but maybe they don't.

First, according to an opinion by the New York County bar's ethics committee (New York County Lawyers Ass'n Comm. on Professional Ethics, Op. 745, 7/2/13),attorneys may in some circumstances advise a client to “take down” social media and online postings that could have an adverse effect on the client's position in a civil matter:  "An attorney may advise clients to keep their social media privacy settings turned on or maximized and may advise clients as to what should or should not be posted on public and/or private pages…. Provided that there is no violation of the rules or substantive law pertaining to the preservation and/or spoliation of evidence, an attorney may offer advice as to what may be kept on “private” social media pages, and what may be “taken down” or removed."

The key to this opinion is, of course, "provided that there is no violation of the rules or substantive law pertaining to the preservation and/or spoliation of evidence".  In other words, what the opinion apparently says is that if it is OK to do it under the law, it is ethical to advice the client to do it.  Nothing new there.

The question then is, is it OK to do it under the law?  Not according to this story in the Professional Liability Matters blog which concludes that "[o]ne rule that is well established is the requirement that a legal hold be implemented for all relevant materials, including social media content. The failure to abide by this rule could be dire."  (There is a follow up story in the PLM blog here.)

More comments on the Zimmerman verdict

Yesterday I wrote that we would see many comments on the Zimmerman verdict in the next few days.  Here are links to some I saw today:

USA Today column by Jonathan Turley

An imaginary dialogue trying to explain Florida v. Zimmerman to someone who has not had the benefit of a legal education by Stephen Gillers

George Conk at Otherwise

Jury nullification argued by prosecution in Zimmerman case (Legal Ethics Forum)

Day on Torts

Georgia Supreme Court agrees with recent ruling re intra-firm privilege

A few days ago I reported that a new decision from Massachusets recently held that confidential communications between law firm attorneys and a law firm's in-house counsel concerning a malpractice claim asserted by a current client of the firm are protected from disclosure to the client by the attorney-client privilege.  Now comes news that the Georgia Supreme Court has issued an opinion reaching the same conclusion.  The Legal Ethics Forum has the story and links here.

Comments on Zimmerman Verdict

I am sure we will see lots of comments on the Zimmerman case in the next few days.  Here is a link to a short comment (with lots of links to more articles, comments and information) at the Legal Ethics Forum.  The main issue it raises is that "[t]he chief prosecutor in the court room was hamstrung by the murder two charge, which required him to stretch facts, pre-emptively put on witnesses who undermined the state's own case, and to spend most of his case trying to create a reasonable doubt about the defense's theory. One wonders what would have happened if the state had simply gone with manslaughter and presented their case with confidence and integrity."