Opinion ID: 530523
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: breach of white's attorney-client privilege

Text: 6 White's principal defense to the charges against him was a general denial of criminal intent. Finotti initially advanced the specific defense that he had relied on the advice of White's counsel. As the trial unfolded, Finotti asserted more definitively that he had been tricked into the agreement at issue by White and White's counsel, Hubert N. Cannon, Jr. In support of this defense, Finotti introduced evidence that during a meeting on the morning of March 1, 1985, Cannon stated that the consulting arrangement would be legal if approved by Finotti's superiors. The government then introduced, over White's objection, evidence that Cannon told White later that day that the arrangement would be illegal even if Finotti had superior officer approval. 7 The district court allowed this prosecution evidence on alternative bases. First, the court held that Finotti's introduction of counsel's unprivileged morning statements opened the door to introduction of the counsel's privileged afternoon conversation. See United States v. Lester H. Finotti, Jr., William H. White, Sr., Carmine DePietro, 701 F.Supp. 830 (D.D.C.1988) (Memorandum and Order admitting evidence) (hereafter Mem. Order). Second, the court declared that White had waived the privilege either by defending on the ground of lack of criminal intent or by asserting to GSA investigators that his attorneys had thoroughly reviewed the decision to employ Finotti after ... looking at the matter from nine different ways. Id. at 835. Finally, although the court did not formally do so, it indicated its readiness to overturn an earlier ruling and find that the communications fell under the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege. See id. at 835; United States v. Lester H. Finotti, Jr., William H. White, Sr., Carmine DePietro, Crim. No. 88-0286, 1988 WL 129723 (D.D.C. Nov. 17, 1988) (Memorandum and Order excluding testimony protected by the attorney-client privilege). None of these rationales, we conclude, can support admission of the evidence. 8 As to the first ground for the district court's ruling, the trial judge apparently believed that White and Finotti had raised a common defense of permission, and that Finotti therefore could open the door to privileged communications between White and Cannon. In fact, however, the two defendants took discrete positions. White maintained that he reasonably relied on Finotti's representation that Finotti had the permission of superior GSA officers, while Finotti ultimately contended that he had been misled by White and the statements of White's counsel. In any event, precedent in point is clear: Under the circumstances presented, only the privilege-holder, White, could waive the privilege. The prosecution may not gain, through the device of a joint trial, admission against one defendant of otherwise inadmissible evidence on the happenstance that the door to admitting the evidence has been opened by a co-defendant. See United States v. Asher, 854 F.2d 1483, 1499-1500 (3d Cir.1988), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 836, 102 L.Ed.2d 969 (1989); United States v. Boyce, 849 F.2d 833, 837 (3d Cir.1988); United States v. Jones, 839 F.2d 1041, 1054 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 1999, 100 L.Ed.2d 230 (1988); United States v. Davis, 838 F.2d 909, 916 (7th Cir.1988); United States v. Pearson, 746 F.2d 787, 795-96 (11th Cir.1984); United States v. Figueroa, 618 F.2d 934, 944 (2d Cir.1980). Indeed, the government candidly conceded the district court's misstep by disclaiming reliance on the door-opening rationale in defending this appeal. If the district court believed that the evidence of the morning conversation, while crucial to Finotti's defense, would mislead the jury in White's favor unless clarified by the later conversation, the court should have severed the trials. See Davis, 838 F.2d at 916; Jones, 839 F.2d at 1054; Figueroa, 618 F.2d at 944. 9 The district court's alternative holding that White waived his attorney-client privilege with regard to the afternoon conversation by putting the government to its proof on the issue of his criminal intent is scarcely more tenable. A rule thus forfeiting the privilege upon denial of mens rea would deter individuals from consulting with their lawyers to ascertain the legality of contemplated actions; it would therefore undermine the animating purpose of the privilege. 10 The district court apparently equated White's denial of criminal intent with a reliance-on-advice-of-counsel defense, which would have waived the privilege. Reliance on advice of counsel is an affirmative defense, an assertion more positive and specific than a general denial of criminal intent. To be acquitted for lack of criminal intent, White did not need to introduce any evidence of communications to and from Cannon, and he did not do so. See Brief for the United States at 15. Indeed, White carefully refrained from relying on any statements of counsel and expressly disavowed any intent to rely on an advice-of-counsel defense. Transcript, Vol. IIB at 8-10. 11 Instead, as earlier stated, White maintained that he believed the arrangement with Finotti was legal because Finotti reported having received permission from his superiors. Transcript, Vol. IIA at 45. White mentioned that Cannon and others were present when Finotti asserted that he had GSA permission to consult for Southern, in part because Finotti had mentioned in his opening statement Cannon's presence at the March 1, 1985 morning meeting. Id. at 36; Transcript, Vol. IIB at 10. But acknowledgement that one's attorney was present during a conversation is not equivalent to affirmative reliance on his advice that one's action is legal. 12 In fact, to be acquitted for lack of criminal intent, White need not have presented any evidence. Intent is an element of the offense the government must prove. It was White's constitutional right to put the government to its proof on all the elements of the offense. See In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1072, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). To penalize him for exercising this right by holding that he waived his attorney-client privilege would cut short both the privilege and the right. 13 The district court also erred in concluding that White waived his privilege by his comment during a preliminary GSA investigation that his attorneys had thoroughly reviewed the decision to employ Finotti after ... looking at the matter from nine different ways. A general assertion lacking substantive content that one's attorney has examined a certain matter is not sufficient to waive the attorney-client privilege. The government acknowledged as much when it admitted at oral argument that if the GSA investigators had followed up White's undetailed assertion by asking what his attorneys had told him, White at that point still would have been able to claim his privilege and refuse to answer. A contrary rule would ill-serve the policies underlying the doctrine of implied waiver. See 8 J. WIGMORE, EVIDENCE Sec. 2237 (McNaughton ed. 1961) (waiver predicated on implied intention of defendant and concerns of fairness and consistency). An averment that lawyers have looked into a matter does not imply an intent to reveal the substance of the lawyers' advice. Where a defendant neither reveals substantive information, nor prejudices the government's case, nor misleads a court by relying on an incomplete disclosure, fairness and consistency do not require the inference of waiver. See In re von Bulow, 828 F.2d 94, 101-02 (2d Cir.1987); United States v. Aronoff, 466 F.Supp. 855, 862 (S.D.N.Y.1979). 14 Under the law of this circuit, a defendant can waive his attorney-client privilege by releasing documents to or allowing his attorney to testify before an investigative body at the pretrial stage. See, e.g., In re Sealed Case, 877 F.2d 976 (D.C.Cir.1989); In re Subpoenas Duces Tecum, 738 F.2d 1367 (D.C.Cir.1984); In re Sealed Case, 676 F.2d 793 (D.C.Cir.1982); Permian Corp. v. United States, 665 F.2d 1214 (D.C.Cir.1981). However, pretrial disclosures have been found to waive the privilege only where a defendant disclosed the substance of privileged documents or permitted actual testimony by his attorney before an investigative body. Here, in contrast, White never released any substantive information about his attorneys' review of the arrangement with Finotti and did not refer to any particular instance of review. 15 Finally, on this record, this court cannot find that the crime-fraud exception justifies admission of the evidence. The crime-fraud exception has a precise focus: It applies only when the communications between the client and his lawyer further a crime, fraud or other misconduct. It does not suffice that the communications may be related to a crime. To subject the attorney-client communications to disclosure, they must actually have been made with an intent to further an unlawful act. See In re Sealed Case, 754 F.2d 395, 399 (D.C.Cir.1985); accord In re Antitrust Grand Jury, 805 F.2d 155, 168 (6th Cir.1986); In re Grand Jury Subpoenas Duces Tecum, 798 F.2d 32, 34 (2d Cir.1986) (per curiam). 16 The district court suggested that the March 1, 1985 morning conversation was part of a scheme to create a false appearance that White had no criminal intent and therefore furthered a crime or fraud. Mem. Order at 16-17. The only basis for this conclusion, however, was the fact that Cannon's statements in the morning differed from his advice in the afternoon. All other indications were to the contrary: Cannon testified that he and White had virtually no discussion of Finotti before the morning meeting, Transcript, Vol. V at 42-45, and White did not rely on an advice of counsel defense at any stage of the judicial proceedings. See supra p. 6. Nothing dispelled the reasonable inference that Cannon altered his opinion after he had time for fuller reflection. 17 We would have to distend this evidence to conclude that Cannon deliberately participated in a scheme to provide an advice-of-counsel defense, albeit one that White never used, in order to manufacture a justification for conduct Cannon had counseled against. Far from showing that Cannon's advice was intended to further a crime or fraud, the evidence suggests, in line with the district court's initial ruling, that Cannon's advice was intended to prevent unlawful conduct. White's failure to heed his lawyer's counsel does not alter this critical facet of the case. 2 18 The district court's ruling on waiver and its second thoughts on the crime-fraud exception would deny White the privilege where even its stern critics acknowledge that the justifications for the shield are strongest--where a client seeks counsel's advice to determine the legality of conduct before the client takes any action. See, e.g., Kaplow & Shavell, Legal Advice About Information to Present in Litigation: Its Effects and Social Desirability, 102 HARV.L.REV. 567, 597-98 (1989). Implied waiver, in sum, is not appropriately invoked when a client has gone to his attorney in good faith, seeking an opinion as to the legality of certain conduct in an area where legal boundaries may be difficult for the layman to discern. In re Doe, 551 F.2d 899, 902 (2d Cir.1977). 19 Because the afternoon conversation was central to the government's proof that White had criminal intent, its improper admission cannot be deemed harmless. See Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). White's conviction must be reversed. 20