March 6, 2015

Attorney Client Privilege: Should It Apply When You Bring Your Victim To An Office Visit?

Attorney client privilege. For years, many a criminal has hid behind it, confessing their guilt to an attorney with the full knowledge that that information cannot be divulged to law enforcement or anyone else.

But are there limits to it? At what point does your “privilege” turn into “TMI”?
That’s what John Marshall would like to know. The 52-year-old Florida resident could be facing charges — police have yet to confirm anything — for his role in the death of neighbor Ted Hubbell.
Apparently, Marshall “didn’t know who else to trust” when he drove Hubbell’s body to attorney Robert Harris’ office after killing Hubbell in what he claims was self-defense.
When Marshall showed up at Harris’ office, the body of Hubbell was waiting motionless in the bed of his pickup.
The dispute was reportedly over property work that had been done days earlier, the News-Press reported.
The news site added that Hubbell died from being “fatally shot” by Marshall, and to go with the possibility that this was a self-defense killing, Marshall had suffered a chipped tooth and two broken thumbs.
While police have yet to arrest John Marshall, Harris did confirm that he has another criminal charge pending involving “assault with a weapon.”
“I believe he’s in shock — probably now still,” Harris said to the website. “He’s still breathing heavy. He’s looking like a man who lost the world.”
As for the issue of attorney client privilege and whether he and Marshall did the right thing in calling police, Harris said that he felt they had.

“They don’t teach you about this in law school. That’s for sure. I believe we’ve handled ourselves correctly, but I’m a little in shock myself. This is not something that happens every day.”

For more on this particular case, make sure to read the full report from News-Press linked above.
This certainly isn’t the strangest case the Inquisitr has covered involving attorneys and their clients.
In November 2014, the site ran a story about an Ohio attorney, Michael Fine, who was placed under investigation for allegedly hypnotizing female clients into performing sex acts during meetings in his office.
He was not formally charged at the time of the post, but court documents alleged Fine preyed on two women who had hired him to represent them in domestic relations cases.
Bar Association lawyer Chris Cook claimed one of the victims, identified as Jane Doe 1, hired Fine in February 2013 to help her resolve a custody suit.
In the case of John Marshall, do you think that Marshall and Harris acted correctly in not hiding behind attorney client privilege?