Court Opinion

ID: 9473128
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:20:07.090399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:20.187620
License: Public Domain

MIKVA, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I join in the court’s decision but wish to stress the limits of our holding. The subpoenas we sustain today are directed solely against attorneys who represented their client in civil litigation; we thus do not decide whether communications between a criminal defense attorney and his or her client would be made unprivileged by a showing of client misconduct comparable to the one made here. In my view, the Sixth Amendment and the underlying policies of the common law privilege require heightened protection of confidential communications between lawyer and client when the lawyer is defending the client against criminal charges. In addition I note that the discussion of the crime-fraud exception in In re Sealed Case, 676 F.2d 793, 812-16 (D.C.Cir.1982) (Sealed Case II), expresses the views of the author of the opinion but does not speak for the court. See id. at 797, 825.