Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 456.0

524US2

Unit: $U92

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 399 (1998)

411

O(cid:146)Connor, J., dissenting

here the Independent Counsel has simply not made a sufﬁ-
cient showing to overturn the common-law rule embodied in
the prevailing case law.
Interpreted in the light of reason
and experience, that body of law requires that the attorney-
client privilege prevent disclosure of the notes at issue in
this case. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Reversed.

Justice O(cid:146)Connor, with whom Justice Scalia and

Justice Thomas join, dissenting.

Although the attorney-client privilege ordinarily will sur-
vive the death of the client, I do not agree with the Court
that it inevitably precludes disclosure of a deceased client’s
communications in criminal proceedings.
In my view, a
criminal defendant’s right to exculpatory evidence or a com-
pelling law enforcement need for information may, where the
testimony is not available from other sources, override a cli-
ent’s posthumous interest in conﬁdentiality.

We have long recognized that “[t]he fundamental basis
upon which all rules of evidence must rest—if they are to
rest upon reason—is their adaptation to the successful devel-
opment of the truth.” Funk v. United States, 290 U. S. 371,
381 (1933).
In light of the heavy burden that they place on
the search for truth, see United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S.
683, 708–710 (1974), “[e]videntiary privileges in litigation are
not favored, and even those rooted in the Constitution must
give way in proper circumstances,” Herbert v. Lando, 441
U. S. 153, 175 (1979). Consequently, we construe the scope
of privileges narrowly. See Jaffee v. Redmond, 518 U. S. 1,
19 (1996) (Scalia, J., dissenting); see also University of
Pennsylvania v. EEOC, 493 U. S. 182, 189 (1990). We are
reluctant to recognize a privilege or read an existing one
expansively unless to do so will serve a “public good tran-
scending the normally predominant principle of utilizing all
rational means for ascertaining truth.” Trammel v. United