Court Opinion

ID: 9498385
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:16:18.660578+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:48.466283
License: Public Domain

BOGGS, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
By concluding both that the loss of confidentiality is itself sufficient to warrant mandamus relief and that Lott’s claim of actual innocence does not impliedly waive his attorney-client privilege, today’s decision upsets this court’s mandamus jurisprudence and elevates the privilege above trial protections guaranteed by the Constitution or other rules of evidence. It does so, I believe, in disregard of the Supreme Court’s decision in Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 115 S.Ct. 851, 130 L.Ed.2d 808 (1995). I cannot agree with the course the court now charts, which is yet another step in transforming the extraordinary instance of a claim of actual innocence into an everyday litigation tactic, and I therefore respectfully dissent.
Lott is before this court on a petition for mandamus relief, which is “a drastic remedy, to be invoked only in extraordinary
*457situations where the petitioner can show a clear and indisputable right to the relief sought.” In re Parker, 49 F.3d 204, 206 (6th Cir.1995). In determining whether petitioner is entitled to this remedy, our court evaluates his claim according to a five-part test. In re Chimenti, 79 F.3d 534, 540 (6th Cir.1996). I disagree with the court’s evaluation of Lott’s petition as to two of these factors. My main point of departure with the court concerns the third factor: whether the district court committed any error at all, let alone a clear error. Furthermore, the court also incorrectly evaluates whether Lott will suffer any injury that could not be remedied on appeal, which is the second factor.
I
The novel issue in this case is whether a petitioner who asserts his actual innocence impliedly waives the attorney-client privilege he holds as to his trial counsel. I would conclude that he does based on the extraordinary nature of the actual innocence inquiry under Schlup, 513 U.S. 298, 115 S.Ct. 851, 130 L.Ed.2d 808.1 I would accordingly deny Lott’s mandamus petition.
To be clear, the sole reason that Lott should not enjoy the attorney-client privilege in his second pursuit of habeas relief is that he presents a claim of actual innocence, invoking Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 115 S.Ct. 851, 130 L.Ed.2d 808. No one doubts that habeas petitioners generally enjoy attorney-client privilege. Fed. R.Evid. 1101(c). Nor has the district court foisted Schlup’s demanding standard onto petitioner; Lott himself presents Schlup as a foundational case for his claim in his second petition. He asserted actual innocence in his first habeas petition as well. In re Lott, 366 F.3d 431, 435 (6th Cir.2004) (Boggs, C.J., dissenting).
A
As other courts have observed, “ ‘[t]he doctrine of implied waiver allocates control of the privilege between the judicial system and the party holding the privilege.’ ” Bittaker v. Woodford, 331 F.3d 715, 720 (9th Cir.2003) (en banc) (quoting Developments in the Law-Privileged Communications, 98 Harv. L.Rev. 1450, 1630 (1985)). Thus, “the privilege may implicitly be waived when defendant asserts a claim that in fairness requires examination of protected communications.” United States v. Bilzerian, 926 F.2d 1285, 1292 (2d Cir.1991). The typical example of such situations, in the habeas context, is when a petitioner asserts that his counsel was ineffective. See, e.g., Bittaker, 331 F.3d at 716 (“It has long been the rule in the federal courts that, where a habeas petitioner raises a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, he waives the attorney-*458client privilege as to all communications with his allegedly ineffective lawyer.”)
But there is no reason to believe that the typical circumstance is also the only circumstance in which a petitioner will impliedly waive privilege. Lott presents a claim of actual innocence under Schlup, which is “factual innocence, not mere legal insufficiency.” Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 623, 118 S.Ct. 1604, 140 L.Ed.2d 828 (1998). The district court is required to determine if Lott in fact committed the murder. See Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U.S. 333, 340, 112 S.Ct. 2514, 120 L.Ed.2d 269 (1992) (“A prototypical example of ‘actual innocence’ in a colloquial sense is the case where the State has convicted the wrong person of the crime.”). As Schlup and Bousley make clear, the “actual innocence” inquiry is a fundamentally different one than that typical of legal proceedings. While the inquiry still requires reference to reasonable doubt, Schlup, 513 U.S. at 328, 115 S.Ct. 851, a claim of actual innocence greatly expands the scope of relevant evidence. The Court explained the standard as follows:
In assessing the adequacy of petitioner’s showing, therefore, the district couH is not bound by the rules of admissibility that would govern at trial. Instead, the emphasis on ‘actual innocence’ allows the reviewing tribunal also to consider the probative force of relevant evidence that was either excluded or unavailable at trial. Indeed, ... we believe that Judge Friendly’s description of the inquiry is appropriate: “The habeas court must make its determination concerning the petitioner’s innocence ‘in light of all the evidence, including that alleged to have been illegally admitted (but with due regard to any unreliability of it) and evidence tenably claimed to have been wrongly excluded or to have become available only after the trial.’ ”
Id. at 327-28, 115 S.Ct. 851 (emphases added) (quoting Henry J. Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments, 38 U. Chi. L.Rev. 142, 160 (1970)). When adjudicating a claim of actual innocence, both the court and the parties are “through the looking glass.” They engage in a fundamentally new inquiry where previous limitations on evidence do not apply.
Fairness thus requires that a petitioner who asserts that he is innocent “ ‘in light of all the evidence’ ” have his claim evaluated “ ‘in light of all the evidence.’ ” Id. at 328, 115 S.Ct. 851 (quoting Friendly, 38 U. Chi. L.Rev. at 160). Therefore, I would conclude that Lott’s implied waiver of the attorney-client privilege is “essential to achieving a just resolution of the case.” United States v. Exxon Corp., 94 F.R.D. 246, 249 (D.D.C.1981). Schlup directly authorizes courts to inquire into “relevant evidence ... unavailable at trial.” 513 U.S. at 328, 115 S.Ct. 851. The conversations and documents protected by Lott’s attorney-client privilege fall neatly into that category. Some of those documents are certainly relevant evidence to his actual innocence,2 and were properly neither admitted nor made available at trial because of Lott’s privilege. But Justice Stevens’s opinion could hardly be more clear that neither the admissibility nor availability of privileged materials is relevant in proceedings under Schlup.
The court attempts to evade this passage by distinguishing the protections afforded by privilege and the protections afforded by other rules of evidence. Of *459course, it is true that, unlike most rules of evidence, the rules of privilege insulate communications from both discovery and admission in court. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(1) (excluding from discovery privileged communications). However, the court’s distinction, while correctly drawn, is between one kind of evidence and other kinds of evidence. See Fed.R.Evid. 501 (federal rule concerning privileges). Schlup, on the other hand, is concerned with any “relevant evidence,” 513 U.S. at 327, 115 S.Ct. 851, and makes no reference to excluding one form or another based on what rule protects it, id. at 327-28, 115 S.Ct. 851. In other words, given Schlup’s guidance, the court draws a distinction without a difference.
The court continues by arguing that the Supreme Court is aware of the difference between the rules of admissibility and those concerning privilege. It therefore notes that “[suspending the rules of admissibility while preserving the rules of privilege is not an unusual event.” Slip Op. at 454-55. Agreed. But the Supreme Court’s familiarity with the distinction today’s opinion now draws speaks volumes for the Court’s decision not to draw the distinction itself. While Schlup’s discussion of relevant evidence is short, at no point does Justice Stevens exclude any evidence from the consideration. 513 U.S. at 327-28, 115 S.Ct. 851. Indeed, it refers to considering “all of the evidence.” Id. at 328, 115 S.Ct. 851. Moreover, the passage directs courts to suspend the rules of admissibility. Id. at 327, 115 S.Ct. 851. Though privilege protects more than admissibility, it also prevents admitting privileged information and, thus, could be described as a rule of admissibility. While the court finds it difficult to believe that such a large leap would be taken silently, Slip Op. at 454-55, I find it harder to justify inferring from what it considers silence a distinction found nowhere in the Supreme Court’s reasoning.
A broader reading of Schlup confirms that the investigation into all evidence should include evidence otherwise protected by privilege. Actual innocence serves as an exception for otherwise procedurally defaulted claims on the basis that the petitioner is “entirely innocent.” Schlup, 513 U.S. at 325, 115 S.Ct. 851. The petitioner is therefore arguing it is a “fundamental miscarriage of justice” for him to remain incarcerated. See id. at 324-25, 115 S.Ct. 851. Actual innocence claims are meant for the “truly deserving,” and thus also the “extraordinary case.” Id. at 321, 115 S.Ct. 851. For a petitioner to show he is entirely innocent, and that he is truly deserving of extraordinary relief, one would think he must be willing to test his innocence against literally all the evidence, including whatever is protected by privilege.
Though this conclusion may seem unduly harsh, one must remember what a petitioner waives by placing his actual innocence at issue. The attorney-client privilege, even compared to other privileges, has an exalted place in our jurisprudence. See Philip Morris, 314 F.3d at 618 (“The attorney-client privilege rests at the center of our adversary system .... ”). But claims of actual innocence require petitioners to surrender much of the normal protections they would enjoy at trial that are guaranteed by the Constitution, not to mention other more commonplace protections afforded by evidentiary rules. Given the Schlup Court’s approval of Judge Friendly’s article concerning habeas relief based on claims of innocence, 513 U.S. at 321-22 & 328, 115 S.Ct. 851, it is beyond peradventure that evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment could be used in determining if petitioner was actually innocent. Friendly, 38 U. Chi. L.Rev. at *460160. This court has already decided that a statement given in violation of Lott’s Sixth Amendment rights can be used against him in determining his actual innocence. Lott v. Coyle, 261 F.3d 594, 621 (6th Cir.2001). I see no reason why petitioner’s rights under the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment would fare any better. The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment primarily addresses the introduction of out-of-court statements at trial. Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 50-51, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). Thus, the admissibility alone of certain evidence raises concerns of constitutional magnitude.3 There is no room, however, in an actual-innocence determination under Schlup for the exclusion of evidence under the Confrontation Clause. Cf. Doe v. Menefee, 391 F.3d 147 (2d Cir.2004) (considering questionable hearsay testimony in actual innocence inquiry because Schlup demands review based on all the evidence). If trial protections guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution are waived by habeas petitioners making claims of actual innocence, one must pause to wonder why the attorney-client privilege is not, as well. It may not be hyperbole to suggest, as the court does, that the attorney-client privilege is foundational to the adversary system, Slip Op. at 4, but the Bill of Rights is no less foundational to our courts or society.
Thus, the fact that the attorney-client privilege already has a doctrine of implied waiver weakens, rather than strengthens, the court’s position. There is no doctrine of implied waiver of rights guaranteed by the Constitution and yet this court has seen fit to waive, in this very hearing, a protection created by Lott’s Sixth Amendment rights. The rationales expressed in most implied-waiver cases speak of doing fairness to the opposing party. See Bittaker, 331 F.3d at 720. Doing fairness to the state in an actual-innocence context may require that a petitioner impliedly waives his privilege. In this case, the parties are reexamining a crime where the only witness to the crime, other than the perpetrator, passed away almost twenty years ago. Finding witnesses and any remaining relevant evidence concerning this crime will be difficult. See Bousley, 523 U.S. at 631, 118 S.Ct. 1604 (Scalia, J, dissenting) (discussing difficulties facing federal investigators for crime eight years in the past where the defendant pleaded guilty). However, especially in a case like this, where there has always been some possibility that the petitioner confessed to the crime, the state should in fairness be allowed to evaluate the records of trial counsel.
B
Contrary to the reasoning of the court, I further believe that the principles surrounding attorney-client privilege favor extending implied waiver to the assertion of actual innocence. The district court found only that petitioner had waived attorney-client privilege as to his trial counsel in asserting his actual innocence under Schlup. While my reasoning would likely lead me to conclude that a petitioner asserting actual innocence would also waive other privileges, that fact does not give me pause. It is a necessarily result of an assertion that one is actually innocent and a victim of a fundamental miscarriage of *461justice. Moreover, the attorney-client privilege is more critical to our system of justice than other privileges. See Jaffee v. Redmond, 518 U.S. 1, 11, 116 S.Ct. 1923, 135 L.Ed.2d 337 (1996) (establishing psychotherapist-patient privilege on basis of public good in improving mental health). In a context where illegally seized evidence, confessions extracted without Miranda warnings, and out-of-court testimonial statements can be employed, maintaining the psychotherapist-patient privilege, just to name one, would be odd indeed.
However, I cannot state strongly enough that the district court’s judgment does no violence to claims of attorney-client privilege in other contexts. I must admit to being baffled by the court’s suggestion that the district court’s judgment or the opinions expressed in this dissent will lead to an unraveling of the attorney-client privilege. See Slip Op. at 456. Any fan-reading of the Court’s actual-innocence jurisprudence makes clear the error in this assertion. While the determination is still made with reference to innocence, it is “factual innocence” that the court considers based on all relevant evidence. Bousley, 523 U.S. at 623, 118 S.Ct. 1604; Schlup, 513 U.S. at 327-28, 115 S.Ct. 851. When both the court and the parties step “through the looking glass” to consider a petitioner’s actual innocence, they engage in an inquiry of a fundamentally different kind. A claim of actual innocence thus places unique demands on the attorney-client privilege, based on values that do not transfer to other areas of law.
Despite the attorney-client privilege’s pedigree, it is to be narrowly construed because, like all other, privileges, it is “in derogation of the search for truth.” United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 710, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974). It “ ‘applies only where necessary to achieve its purpose and protects only those communications necessary to obtain legal advice.’ ” In re Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. Billing Practices Litigation, 293 F.3d 289, 293 (6th Cir.2002) (quoting In re Antitrust Grand Jury, 805 F.2d 155, 162 (6th Cir.1986)). Applying waiver only when a petitioner raises a claim of actual innocence does little harm to the privilege’s purpose of promoting open communication between attorney and client. See Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383, 389, 101 S.Ct. 677, 66 L.Ed.2d 584 (1981) (giving purposes served by attorney-client privilege). It frankly blinks at reality to believe that a criminal defendant will be less candid with his attorney because of his possible assertion of a claim that would likely only be raised after conviction, a full course of appeals in the state courts, post-conviction review in the state courts, and federal habeas review. The purposes of the privilege are not harmed by this ruling.4
In addition, even if the values animating the privilege were incrementally diminished by this reasoning, Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence authorizes federal courts to determine the scope of privilege “in the light of reason and experience.” Courts have thus been willing to limit the privilege’s applicability when policy considerations counsel otherwise. See In re Witness Before Special Grand Jury 2000-2, 288 F.3d 289, 292-94 (7th Cir.2002); In re Lindsey, 158 F.3d 1263, 1275-78 (D.C.Cir.1998); In re Grand Jury Subpoena Duces
*462Tecum, 112 F.3d 910, 920-21 (8th Cir.1997) (all rejecting a governmental attorney-client privilege in grand-jury proceedings); see also Reed v. Baxter, 134 F.3d 351, 356 (6th Cir.1998) (noting that governmental assertion of the attorney-client privilege conflicts with “the strong public interest in open and honest government”). But see In re Grand Jury Investigation, 399 F.3d 527, 532 (2d Cir.2005) (allowing governmental assertion of privilege in grand jury context to foster open communication). The actual-innocence claim attempts to strike a balance between the interests in finality and comity, on the one hand, and individualized justice on the other. Schlup, 513 U.S. at 321, 115 S.Ct. 851. The privilege already limits the truth-gathering function of the court and, thus to some extent, also individual justice. Cf. In re Grand Jury Investigation, 399 F.3d at 532 (“The idea that a robust attorney-client privilege will in fact ‘promote broader public interests’ does not mean that application of the privilege will render justice in every single case.”). Now, under the court’s decision today, the privilege will also be used to oppose finality and comity by prolonging the fair disposition of such claims and encouraging their proliferation.
II
The second factor for determining if a petitioner is entitled to mandamus relief is whether the petitioner “will be damaged or prejudiced in a way not correctable on appeal.” Chimenti, 79 F.3d at 540. The court’s conclusion that Lott will be irreparably harmed by his loss of confidentiality he enjoyed in communications with his trial counsel is a departure from both this court’s and our sister courts’ examinations of the issue and will weaken the flexibility central to our mandamus jurisprudence. In re Perrigo Co., 128 F.3d 430, 435 (6th Cir.1997); Chimenti, 79 F.3d at 539.
Petitioner’s case differs substantially from the complex commercial suits in which discovery orders have been deemed grounds for mandamus review. See, e.g., United States v. Philip Morris, 314 F.3d 612, 614 (D.C.Cir.2003) (granting interlocutory appeal under collateral order doctrine in federal RICO prosecution); Perrigo, 128 F.3d at 432 (granting mandamus review in stockholder derivative suit), Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A. v. Turner & Newall, PLC, 964 F.2d 159, 160-62 (2d Cir.1992) (same result in case concerning asbestos installation). As I observed when the court granted Lott a stay pending this decision, “[t]his difference matters, not because the harm facing Lott is any less (quite the opposite), but because it impacts this court’s ability to remedy that harm on appeal.” In re Lott, No. 05-3532, 2005 WL 1515367, at *7 (6th Cir. June 22, 2005) (Boggs, C.J., dissenting). In the conventional instance, encroachments on the attorney-client privilege will make effective appellate review and remedy impossible. The wrongfully gained discovery will produce “fruit of the poisoned tree” problems. Chase Manhattan Bank, 964 F.2d at 165. Courts would find it impossible to separate the “poisoned” evidence and theories from those not compromised by wrongful disclosure. See Philip Morris, 314 F.3d at 619 (“It would be impossible for a court to sort out and redress the harm caused by the incorrect disclosure.”). As one of our sister circuits has accurately, if colorfully, put it, “there is no way to unscramble the egg scrambled by disclosure.” In re Ford Motor Co., 110 F.3d 954, 963 (3d Cir.1997).
That concern is not present in this case, where nearly twenty years of litigation in state and federal courts have crystallized the points of contention between the parties. We already know the evidence that the state seeks to extract from Lott’s trial *463attorneys: that Lott admitted to them either that he committed the murder or that he confessed to police. They seek to extract this evidence for one reason only: to convince the district court that Lott is not actually innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. Were this case then to reach us on appeal, and Lott were to press the claim on which the court now grants relief, our position would be a familiar one to any appellate court. Were we to agree with Lott’s position, we would exclude the evidence and remand to the district court, following the same procedure we do in any evidentiary dispute. That is, we could remedy any error, if indeed there were error, on direct appeal.
Instead of disagreeing with this analysis, the court focuses instead on a different harm, the inherent harm of losing confidentiality. See Slip Op. at 5 (“The damage to the attorney-client relationship will have already been done by the disclosure itself”). No case from our sister circuits, however, focuses on that harm divorced from its practical consequences to the litigants. In Chase Manhattan Bank, cited by the court, ibid., the Second Circuit emphasized that disclosure of confidential documents to opposing counsel, even if not used at trial, would still cause practical harms to the party asserting privilege. Chase Manhattan Bank, 964 F.2d at 165. Our sister circuit observed that even temporary disclosure would allow “evidentiary leads or give insights regarding various claims and defenses” to which opposing counsel would not otherwise be entitled. Ibid.; see also Ford Motor Co., 110 F.3d at 963 (noting similarly harmful effects). Thus, when both the Second and Third Circuits have noted that discovery of privileged materials “ ‘will not suffice to ensure free and full communication by clients who do not rate highly a privilege that is operative only at the time of trial,’ ” ibid. (quoting Chase Manhattan Bank, 964 F.2d at 165), our sister circuits recognized that clients would be concerned with the practical consequences of that disclosure, i.e. opening a Pandora’s box of wrongly gained evidence and legal theories. That risk is not presented by the facts of this case.
More important, however, is the court’s marked departure from our own court’s mandamus jurisprudence. In this court, mandamus relief is “an extraordinary remedy, only infrequently utilized.” Perrigo, 128 F.3d at 435. While we have granted mandamus relief to protect a party’s attorney-client privilege, we have done so based on the circumstances of the case with emphasis on the flexibility our case law affords. See id. at 437 (emphasizing the circumstances surrounding the claim). We recognized that discovery-based violations of the privilege “may bring about irreparable harm.” Ibid, (emphasis added). Until today’s opinion, however, we have never held that a discovery-based violation automatically will bring about irreparable harm. But that is the inevitable conclusion of the court’s reasoning, as there is no violation of privilege that will not result in some loss of confidentiality. Nor can today’s opinion be limited to the context of the attorney-client privilege because any loss of privilege will result in a diminution in confidentiality. More importantly, a party can assert that it will be harmed in a way not revocable on appeal without any concern for the context in which the harm is asserted. It seems that any party seeking to shield communications protected by any privilege can draw on the mandamus jurisdiction of this court, so long as some of the other conditions are met. See Parker, 49 F.3d at 207 (noting factors are to be balanced and the absence of one factor does not doom petition for relief).
Today’s departure from our previous mandamus jurisprudence will have deleterious effects. As to this factor in the *464mandamus balancing, this court is now without any flexibility in addressing whether a litigant will be harmed.5 Our court will inevitably see more petitions for writs of mandamus, but will have fewer tools with which to distinguish the extraordinary from the mundane. With the rise in mandamus petitions will come accompanying delays in the orderly administration of justice, which our mandamus jurisdiction is supposed to further, not weaken. Perrigo, 128 F.3d at 435 (citing EEOC v. K-Mart Corp., 694 F.2d 1055, 1061 (6th Cir.1982)). All this will be done in the service of privileges, which, despite their historical roots, are still a set of doctrines that “contravene the fundamental principle that ‘the public ... has a right to every man’s evidence.” ’ Trammel v. United States, 445 U.S. 40, 50, 100 S.Ct. 906, 63 L.Ed.2d 186 (1980) (alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Bryan, 339 U.S. 323, 331, 70 S.Ct. 724, 94 L.Ed. 884 (1950)). Therefore, I would conclude that the loss of confidentiality, standing alone, is not sufficient to justify issuance of a writ of mandamus.
Ill
For these reasons, I would conclude that petitioner, by asserting his actual innocence, has impliedly waived the attorney-client privilege as to his trial counsel. While I believe a fair reading of Schlup requires this conclusion, the conclusion is further confirmed by the policies surrounding claims of actual innocence and consideration of the other evidence that will be admitted. Furthermore, I cannot agree with the court’s reasoning in finding that Lott will endure any irreparable harm if we were to consider his claim only following a final judgment by the district court. I therefore respectfully dissent.

. While I conclude the district court’s conclusion is manifestly correct, such firmness in belief is not necessary to deny the writ of mandamus. Between the district court being clearly correct, as I believe, and it clearly erring, as the court believes, lies a quite extensive gray area. If this issue were to fall into that area, I believe the mandamus petition would have to be denied. While the question of whether the district court is clearly erroneous as a matter of law is just one factor out of the five we balance, Chimenti, 79 F.3d at 540, the Supreme Court has put significantly greater emphasis on the issue. See Will v. Calvert Fire Ins. Co., 437 U.S. 655, 661, 98 S.Ct. 2552, 57 L.Ed.2d 504 (1978) ("Whereas a simple showing of error may suffice to obtain a reversal on direct appeal, to issue a writ of mandamus under such circumstances 'would undermine the settled limitations upon the power of an appellate court to review interlocutory orders.' ”) (quoting Will v. United States, 389 U.S. 90, 98 n. 6, 88 S.Ct. 269, 19 L.Ed.2d 305 (1967)); see also Parker, 49 F.3d at 206 (granting relief only when petitioner demonstrates "a clear and indisputable right to the relief sought").

. The district court will screen the documents for relevance to Lott's actual innocence or Brady claims via in camera inspection before turning them over to respondent. See Pet’r App. 52-53 (district court discovery order).

. This was even more pronounced under the Confrontation Clause analysis of Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), under which hearsay statements could be admitted if they fell within a "firmly rooted hearsay exception.” Id. at 66, 100 S.Ct. 2531.

. The attorney-client privilege’s role in insuring effective advocacy, see Philip Morris, 314 F.3d at 618, may be good reason to hold that a petitioner does not impliedly waive the privilege as to communications with his current counsel when he asserts his actual innocence. That question, however, is not before us as the district court's ruling is specifically limited to Lott's trial counsel.

. Perhaps the court wishes to adopt the positions of two of our sister circuits and allow immediate appeals under the collateral order doctrine, see Slip Op. at 2 n. 2, but that is not and has never been the law in this circuit. See FDIC v. Ernst & Whinney, 921 F.2d 83, 85 (6th Cir.1990) (denying jurisdiction under the collateral doctrine in case involving governmental privileges).