Opinion ID: 365441
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Frederick Ingram

Text: 49 Frederick Ingram's attack on the joinder is based on the district court's exclusion of three items of evidence offered to support his extortion defense, which Ingram argues occurred because he was tried with the men he allegedly bribed. 50
51 Throughout the period covered by the indictment, Benton kept diaries, or appointment calendars, in which he made notes concerning meetings and telephone conversations, naming the persons involved and often recording the substance of the conversations. The Benton diaries figured prominently in the government's case, for they corroborated much of his testimony. 52 Destroying Benton's credibility was important to Ingram, as it was to the other defendants, even though Ingram's defense was based, in part, on the argument that he had made the payments in response to the threats Benton had reported to him, because Ingram's account of events in issue differed materially from Benton's, and because the government's case hinged largely on Benton's testimony. Since Benton's diaries corroborated so much of his testimony, it was imperative from the standpoint of all defendants that an effort be made to discredit them. 53 Such an effort was made, and Frederick Ingram and McPartlin cooperated in that effort. In a brief supporting a pretrial Motion for Additional Time to Conduct Document Analysis, Ingram's counsel stated, with reference to contemplated tests on the Benton diaries, 54 (T)he defendant Frederic B. Ingram is not the only defendant who may be affected by the results of these tests. Besides the general effect of the doubts that may be raised as to Benton's veracity and the credibility of the diary entries, the case against at least one other defendant Robert F. McPartlin may be substantially affected by the results of the tests. From the results of the tests conducted so far, it appears that at least two of the suspicious diary entries relate to alleged payments of money to Mr. McPartlin. 55 An investigator acting for Frederick Ingram's counsel twice interviewed McPartlin with the consent of the latter's counsel 12 for the purpose of determining whether there was a basis for challenging the truth of some of the diary entries. In the second of these interviews McPartlin made certain statements, which Ingram argues tend to support his defense. At trial, when Ingram offered evidence of these statements, McPartlin's counsel objected on the ground, Inter alia, of the attorney-client privilege, and the court, after an In camera hearing, sustained the objection on this and another ground. 13 56 The exclusion of the McPartlin statements would not be reversible error even if he had not been entitled to claim the privilege. We are satisfied from our examination of the transcript of the In camera hearing, which was sealed and made a part of the record on appeal, that the statements merely corroborated facts which were admitted in evidence and which the jury obviously found to be true. 14 We do not disclose the contents of the statements because they remain protected by the attorney-client privilege, on which we alternatively base our ruling on this point. 57 McPartlin was entitled to the protection of the attorney-client privilege, because his statements were made in confidence to an attorney for a co-defendant for a common purpose related to both defenses. They were made in connection with the project of attempting to discredit Benton, a project in which Ingram and McPartlin and their attorneys were jointly engaged for the benefit of both defendants. Ingram acknowledges that communications by a client to his own lawyer remain privileged when the lawyer subsequently shares them with co-defendants for purposes of a common defense. The common-defense rule, which is not as narrow as Ingram contends, has been recognized in cases spanning more than a century. Chahoon v. Commonwealth, 62 Va. (21 Gratt.) 822 (1871); Schmitt v. Emery, 211 Minn. 547, 2 N.W.2d 413 (1942); Continental Oil Co. v. United States, 330 F.2d 347 (1964); Hunydee v. United States, 355 F.2d 183 (9th Cir. 1965); Matter of Grand Jury Subpoena, 406 F.Supp. 381, 387-389 (S.D.N.Y.1975); See State v. Emmanuel, 42 Wash.2d 799, 259 P.2d 845, 854-855 (1953); Note, Waiver of Attorney-Client Privilege on Inter-Attorney Exchange of Information, 63 Yale L.J. 1030 (1954); Note, The Attorney-Client Privilege in Multiple Party Situations, 8 Colum.J.L. & Soc.Prob. 179 (1972). Uninhibited communication among joint parties and their counsel about matters of common concern is often important to the protection of their interests. Note, Supra, 8 Colum.J.L. & Soc.Prob. at 179-180. In criminal cases it can be necessary to a fair opportunity to defend. Therefore, waiver is not to be inferred from the disclosure in confidence to a co-party's attorney for a common purpose. 58 In the case at bar, the judge found, as a preliminary question of fact, from the evidence adduced at the hearing held pursuant to Rule 404(a), Fed.R.Evid., that McPartlin had made the statements to the investigator in confidence. That finding is not clearly erroneous. 59 Ingram argues that the co-defendants' defenses must be in all respects compatible if the joint-defense privilege is to be applicable. The cases do not establish such a limitation, 15 and there is no reason to impose it. Rule 503(b)(3) of the proposed Federal Rules of Evidence, as approved by the Supreme Court, stated that the privilege applies to communications by a client to a lawyer representing another in a matter of common interest. See 2 J. Weinstein, Evidence 503-52 (1977). The Advisory Committee's Note to proposed Rule 503(b) makes it clear that the joint-interest privilege is not limited to situations in which the positions of the parties are compatible in all respects: 60 The third type of communication occurs in the joint defense or pooled information situation, where different lawyers represent clients who have Some interests in common. . . . The rule does not apply to situations where there is No common interest to be promoted by a joint consultation, and the parties meet on a purely adversary basis. 61 Quoted in 2 J. Weinstein, Supra, at 503-6 to 503-7. (Emphasis supplied and citations omitted.) Although the Congress, in its revision of the Federal Rules of Evidence, deleted the detailed privilege rules and left the subject of privilege in federal question cases to be governed by the principles of common law as they may be interpreted by the courts of the United States, R. 501 Fed.R.Evid., the recommendations of the Advisory Committee, approved by the Supreme Court, are a useful guide to the federal courts in their development of a common law of evidence. 2 J. Weinstein, Supra, at 501-20.4 to 501-20.5. In this instance we follow the recommendation. The privilege protects pooling of information for any defense purpose common to the participating defendants. Cooperation between defendants in such circumstances is often not only in their own best interests but serves to expedite the trial or, as in the case at bar, the trial preparation. 16 62 Ingram also seems to argue that the communication was not privileged because it was made to an investigator rather than an attorney. The investigator was an agent for Ingram's attorney, however, so it is as if the communication was to the attorney himself. It has never been questioned that the privilege protects communications to the attorney's . . . agents . . . for rendering his services. 8 Wigmore, Evidence § 2301 at 583 (McNaughton rev. 1961); Cf. United States v. Kovel, 296 F.2d 918, 921-922 (2d Cir. 1961) (client's communications to an accountant employed by his attorney). 63 Nor was it, as Ingram contends, fatal to the privilege that McPartlin made the statement, in effect, to Ingram's attorney rather than his own. When the Ingram and McPartlin camps decided to join in an attempt to discredit Benton, the attorney for each represented both for purposes of that joint effort. The relationship was no different than it would have been if during the trial the Ingram and McPartlin attorneys had decided that Ingram's attorney would cross-examine Benton on behalf of both, and during cross-examination McPartlin passed Ingram's attorney a note containing information for use in the cross-examination. The attorney who thus undertakes to serve his client's co-defendant for a limited purpose becomes the co-defendant's attorney for that purpose. A claim of privilege was upheld in circumstances such as these where communications were made directly to the attorney for another party in In the Matter of Grand Jury Subpoena Duces Tecum, supra, 406 F.Supp. at 391. United States v. Friedman, 445 F.2d 1076, 1085 n.4 (9th Cir.), Cert. denied, 404 U.S. 958, 92 S.Ct. 326, 30 L.Ed.2d 275 (1971), relied on by Ingram, is not to the contrary. In Friedman the court held its decision in Hunydee v. United States, supra, inapplicable, because no joint defense or common interest was alleged. The court went on to state, in the footnote relied upon, that even if Hunydee was applicable, there was no privilege since the facts of the conversation negate confidentiality. 445 F.2d at 1085 n.4. 64 Inasmuch as McPartlin was entitled to assert the privilege whether Ingram was tried jointly or separately, no prejudice would have resulted from the joint trial by reason of the exclusion of the McPartlin statements even if those statements had not been merely cumulative.
65 Frederick Ingram also argues that joinder caused specific prejudice through the trial court's exclusion, as prejudicial to other defendants, of evidence of threats of physical harm directed against Benton. The short answer is that prejudice to other defendants was not the only ground for the exclusion. The excluded evidence consisted of testimony by Ingram that in the fall of 1972 Benton expressed fear for his own physical well-being if Ingram refused to make the promised payments to the Chicago officials, and testimony by two other witnesses that Benton told them in October 1974 that someone had threatened him with physical harm. To begin with, both statements by Benton were said to have been made long after February 1972, when Ingram, by his own admission, authorized Benton to make payments to secure the contract. There is no indication in the record that the second, made long after all payments were made was ever communicated to Ingram. The alleged threats were directed at Benton, not Frederick Ingram, who had no dealings in the matter with anyone outside Ingram Corporation. Finally, Ingram's theory throughout the trial was economic, not physical, coercion. 17 The evidence was properly excluded as irrelevant, and it would have been equally irrelevant if Ingram had been tried separately. 66
67 Frederick Ingram also contends that the joinder caused the exclusion of evidence that an attorney who represented Ingram Corporation before the Illinois Commerce Commission made a $5,000 contribution to McPartlin's reelection campaign fund, and that the payment was motivated in part by McPartlin's having recommended the attorney's firm to Ingram Corporation. There was no showing that the attorney was coerced. This evidence, offered first by the prosecution and then by the Ingrams, was rightly excluded on both occasions as irrelevant. In rejecting the Ingram offer the court said that it could be prejudicial to McPartlin without being probative of any issue as far as the Ingrams are concerned. Prejudice to McPartlin aside, the trial court was correct as to the probative value of the evidence. 68 We therefore conclude that the denial of the motions for severance was not error.