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Parties Involved:
Sealed Case

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

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Filed November 21, 1997

No. 97-3006

IN RE: SEALED CASE

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Consolidated with

No. 97-3007

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Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 95ms00446; No. 95ms00447)

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BEFORE: EDWARDS, Chief Judge; WALD, SILBERMAN, 

WILLIAMS, GINSBURG, SENTELLE, HENDERSON, RANDOLPH, 

ROGERS, TATEL and GARLAND, Circuit Judges.

On Appellees' Suggestion

for Rehearing In Banc

O R D E R

Appellees' Suggestion for Rehearing In Banc and the 

response thereto have been circulated to the full court. The 

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taking of a vote was requested. Thereafter, a majority of the 

judges of the court in regular active service did not vote in 

favor of the suggestion. Upon consideration of the foregoing, 

it is

ORDERED that the suggestion be denied.

A statement of Circuit Judge TATEL dissenting from the 

denial of rehearing in banc, in which Circuit Judge GINSBURG

joins with respect to the issue of attorney-client privilege, is 

attached.

Circuit Judges SENTELLE and GARLAND did not participate 

in this matter.

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TATEL, Circuit Judge, with whom GINSBURG, Circuit Judge,

joins with respect to the issue of attorney-client privilege, 

dissenting from the denial of rehearing in banc: Dramatically 

departing from the common law rule that protects the attorney-client privilege after a client's death, and threatening the 

vitality of that privilege, this case raises issues of exceptional 

importance worthy of in banc consideration. See FED. R. APP. 

P. 35(a)(2). The case especially warrants in banc review 

because the consequences of the court's new balancing test 

will extend far beyond federal criminal cases in the District of 

Columbia. Clients involved in civil or criminal proceedings 

anywhere in the country have no way of knowing whether 

information they share with their lawyers might someday 

become relevant to a federal criminal investigation in Washington, D.C. As the Supreme Court noted regarding the 

psychotherapist privilege, "any State's promise of confidentiality would have little value if the patient were aware that 

the privilege would not be honored in a federal court." Jaffee 

v. Redmond, 116 S. Ct. 1923, 1930 (1996).

As I pointed out in my dissent, the common law rule has 

been incorporated in the Uniform Rules of Evidence and the 

Model Code of Evidence, adopted by the Supreme Court's 

Advisory Committee, and codified by at least twenty state 

legislatures. In re Sealed Case, 124 F.3d 230, 238 (D.C. Cir. 

1997) (Tatel, J., dissenting). The Independent Counsel cites 

two cases that have abrogated the privilege after a client's 

death, but neither is relevant here. In both State v. Gause,

489 P.2d 830 (Ariz. 1971), and State v. Kump, 301 P.2d 808 

(Wyo. 1956), courts held that an accused husband could not 

invoke the privilege on behalf of his dead wife to bar his 

wife's lawyer from testifying, a situation quite different from 

this case where the attorney himself has invoked the privilege 

on behalf of his deceased client. As the court in Gause said, 

"the privilege is that of the client and must be claimed by the 

client or someone authorized by law to do so on the client's 

behalf." Gause, 489 P.2d at 834. Until this court's decision, 

only one reported casea never-cited opinion of a mid-level 

Pennsylvania appellate courtactually supported posthumous 

abrogation of the privilege when asserted by the lawyer in a 

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nontestamentary dispute. Cohen v. Jenkintown Cab Co., 357 

A.2d 689 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1976).

According to the Independent Counsel, empirical support 

is "nonexistent" for the proposition that abrogating the 

attorney-client privilege after the client's death will chill 

client communication. Opposition of the United States to 

Appellees' Petition for Rehearing With Suggestion for Rehearing In Banc at 12. But because the Independent Counsel 

himself urges overturning the common law rule, and because 

that rule rests on the proposition that preserving the attorney-client privilege after the client's death is necessary to 

promote client disclosure, the Independent Counsel bears the 

responsibility of producing evidence to the contrary. In place 

of such evidence, he offers only his opinion that "any hypothesized chilling effect would be minimal," id., citing only this 

court's opinion that it "expect[s]" its balancing test's "chilling 

effect to fall somewhere between modest and nil," Sealed 

Case, 124 F.3d at 233. Without convincing evidence that 

abrogating the privilege will do no harm to client communications, this court should not abandon centuries of common law.

Invoking a parade of horribles not before us, the Independent Counsel claims that injustice will result if courts cannot 

abrogate the attorney-client privilege after the client's death. 

While in some cases the privilege will deny information to the 

trier of fact, it does so in order to promote a broader and 

more important valueencouraging the free flow of information from client to lawyer. The common law long ago determined that the benefits gained by recognizing the privilege 

posthumously outweigh whatever damage might flow from 

denying information to the trier of fact in any particular case. 

Id. at 241 (Tatel, J., dissenting).

Petitioner also seeks rehearing in banc with respect to the 

court's work product ruling. Id. at 235-37. Because drawing 

a precise line between fact and opinion work product is a 

difficult and sensitive question with serious implications for 

the attorney-client relationship, and because I think the court 

has drawn the line in the wrong place, this issue also warrants in banc review.

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The court's conclusion that because the interview was 

"preliminary" and "initiated" by the client, the lawyer may 

not have "sharply focused or weeded" the words of the client, 

id. at 236, reflects a view of the lawyer's role very different 

from my own experience. No lawyer approaches a client's 

problems with a "blank slate." Appellees' Petition for Rehearing With Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc at 14. Even 

at a first meeting, regardless of who initiates it, lawyers bring 

their own judgment, experience, and knowledge of the law to 

conversations with clients. Of course lawyers may want to 

encourage wide-ranging discussions at first meetings, but 

they do so in order to draw out and record information they 

think might be important. Unless they take verbatim notes, 

the questions they ask and those facts they write down reflect 

their own views about what is important to their client's case. 

Whether courts can require production of attorney work 

product should turn not on the stage of representation or who 

initiates a meeting, but on whether the attorney's notes are 

entirely factual, or whether they instead represent the "opinions, judgments, and thought processes of counsel." In re 

Sealed Case, 676 F.2d 793, 809 (D.C. Cir. 1982).

The notes in this case demonstrate quite clearly that the 

lawyer actively exercised his judgment when interviewing his 

client. In two hours, he created only three pages of notes. 

Far from taking verbatim notes, the lawyer obviously wrote 

down what he thought was significant, omitting everything 

else. The notes bear the markings of a lawyer focusing the 

words of his client; he underlined certain words, placing both 

checkmarks and question marks next to certain sections. 

The notes clearly represent the opinions, judgments, and 

thought processes of counsel.

After this decision, no lawyer will risk having his notes end 

up before a grand jury because of a judicial finding that he 

had not "sharply focused or weeded" the words of the client; 

lawyers will simply stop taking notes at early, critical meetings with clients. Not only will this damage the ability of 

lawyers to represent their clients but in the end there will be 

no notes for grand juries to see. Similar consequences, of 

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lege balancing test; advised that their disclosures might be 

unprotected after death, clients may simply not talk candidly. 

As the Supreme Court noted in the psychotherapist privilege 

context, "[w]ithout a privilege, much of the desirable evidence 

to which litigants ... seek access ... is unlikely to come into 

being." Jaffee, 116 S. Ct. at 1929. This court's two new 

holdingsone chilling client disclosure, the other chilling 

lawyer note-takingwill damage the quality of legal representation without producing any corresponding benefits to the 

fact-finding process.

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