[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 85 (Thursday, June 25, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H5389-H5390]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS SANCTITY OF ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, in the continuing saga of the legal 
education of Kenneth W. Starr, the Supreme Court upholds the sanctity 
of the attorney-client relationship. In a vote of six to three today, 
they upheld this relationship by ruling that communications between a 
client and his or her lawyer remain privileged, even after the client's 
death.

                              {time}  1815

  Today's decision rejected efforts by the Independent Counsel, Kenneth 
Starr, to obtain three pages of handwritten notes taken by the attorney 
for former deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster. The notes were 
taken during a meeting between Mr. Foster and his lawyer just 9 days 
before Mr. Foster tragically took his own life.

[[Page H5390]]

  Mr. Starr had asked the court to rule that anything a client says to 
his or her lawyer should be available to a prosecutor after the client 
dies. He also asked the court to believe that only clients who intended 
to perjure themselves would be stopped from talking to their lawyers if 
they knew that their conversations might become public after their 
death.
  The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Rehnquist, 
wrote that

       The attorney-client privilege is one of the oldest 
     recognized privileges for confidential communications. It is 
     intended to encourage full and frank communication between 
     attorneys and their clients, and thereby promote broader 
     public interests in the observance of law and the 
     administration of justice.
  He added that ``It has been generally, if not universally, accepted, 
for well over a century, that the attorney-client privilege survives 
the death of the client in a case such as this.'' In light of this 
settled law, the Chief Justice said that ``The burden is on the 
Independent Counsel to show that `reason and experience' require a 
departure from this rule,'' and the court concluded that Mr. Starr 
could not meet that standard.
  Rejecting Mr. Starr's view that only guilty people will invoke the 
privilege, the Chief Justice made the commonsense observation that 
people go to see attorneys about a wide range of matters that might 
prove embarrassing if made public after they die. For example, people 
routinely meet with lawyers to talk about family or money problems, and 
who would ever want these kinds of things made public? Think of the 
possible embarrassment to a person's family or the potential damage to 
that person's reputation, even after his or her death.
  The Chief Justice wrote that,

       There are weighty reasons that counsel in favor of 
     posthumous application. Knowing that communications will 
     remain confidential even after death encourages the client to 
     communicate fully and frankly with counsel. While the fear of 
     disclosure, and the consequent withholding of information 
     from counsel, may be reduced if disclosure is limited to 
     posthumous disclosure in a criminal context, it seems 
     unreasonable to assume that it vanishes altogether. Clients 
     may be concerned about reputation, civil liability, or 
     possible harm to friends or family. Posthumous disclosure of 
     such communications may be as feared as disclosure during the 
     client's lifetime.

  During his 4-year, $40 million investigation, Mr. Starr made it seem 
that anyone who asserts a privilege when he demands information is 
somehow trying to obstruct justice. Without question, it is important 
for a prosecutor to uncover facts necessary to decide whether a crime 
has been committed, but we expect the basic principles of law and 
civility will be followed during criminal investigations.
  The decision today by the United States Supreme Court reaffirms what 
most of us already knew, which is that the relationship between a 
lawyer and a client is sacred, and that prosecutors themselves are 
sometimes guilty of excesses.

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