Can a Lawyer turn you in?

J

jlet19

Bluelighter
Joined
Nov 8, 2006
Messages
63
I had this lawyer for a hit and run injury accident back in april. my friend ran out of the car and got rid of a bunch of shit before the cops came.

long story short the cops knew someone else was in the car during the accident, and was wondering why he ran(obviously because of drugs/alcohol (underage).

so i hired a lawyer told him we werent doing anything wrong my friend ran because he paniced.

then recently in december my dorm room got raided and seized alot of things and i am using the same attorney for this but i have yet to receive a bill from him. we had a sit down talk and i told him e v e r y t h i n g. why my friend ran from the car in his previous case

can he turn me n because i lied to him? the thing is i dunno if i want to keep this lawyer when the charges come through for my dorm room because i want a local attorney for that case.
 
no way!!

no, the lawyer cant turn u in cause u lied to him
now, if u lied to the court in the previous case, which is a crime, that could come back to haunt you.
lying to the court is perjury.
but ur best situation now is to deal with everything totally honestly with ur lawyer.
you dont want ur lawyer to be surprized with police evidence that u were dealing drugs, at any level, even if ur current charges are just possession....
dealing with ur lawyer honestly is not the same as admitting everything to the cops!!
i'm not even sure if it really mattered if you told the lawyer why the kid bolted during the accident...i cant see a lawyer telling you to admit that you knew that the kid had drugs on him and that he was a passenger in your car....thats pretty close to incriminating yourself....and saying...i guess the kid just panicked is a good answer
i wish you good luck with the court system
 
No, that is privaleged information (if you're in the US). He can't tell anyone anything, without your consent.
 
The professionals amongst us may correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the client-attorney privilege may be breached if the attorney reasonably believes his client is a danger to himself and/or others.

Which is obviously not the case here, but I thought I'd bring that up anyway.
 
from the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which largely reflect what each state has adopted....

Client-Lawyer Relationship

Rule 1.6 Confidentiality Of Information

(a) A lawyer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of a client unless the client gives informed consent, the disclosure is impliedly authorized in order to carry out the representation or the disclosure is permitted by paragraph (b).

(b) A lawyer may reveal information relating to the representation of a client to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes necessary:

(1) to prevent reasonably certain death or substantial bodily harm;

(2) to prevent the client from committing a crime or fraud that is reasonably certain to result in substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another and in furtherance of which the client has used or is using the lawyer's services;

(3) to prevent, mitigate or rectify substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another that is reasonably certain to result or has resulted from the client's commission of a crime or fraud in furtherance of which the client has used the lawyer's services;

(4) to secure legal advice about the lawyer's compliance with these Rules;

(5) to establish a claim or defense on behalf of the lawyer in a controversy between the lawyer and the client, to establish a defense to a criminal charge or civil claim against the lawyer based upon conduct in which the client was involved, or to respond to allegations in any proceeding concerning the lawyer's representation of the client; or

(6) to comply with other law or a court order.
 
interesting. i understood this part thus far i was just worried when the charges come thru on the drug dealing case and i dont hire this lawyer but a different one if he would turn me in because he has to legally or something which i dont think is the case. i refer alot of people to him so im sure he wont be too pissed
 
When you discuss your case with an attorney to see if you want to hire him or her, you are covered by the same duty of confidentiality that someone who is already a client is covered by. He's not allowed to turn you in unless he has clear reason to believe that you're going to hurt someone (not that you have in the past, that you're going to in the future). Plus there are a few other circumstances in Banquo's post where a lawyer can breach your confidentiality, but if that lawyer ever wanted to practice criminal defense law after that I really doubt he or she would turn you in for something other than a life-or-death emergency.
 
So if a lawyer is representing the mafia or a known killer for hire then he is legally obligated to divulge that information if he knows the person plans to kill again in the future if he is acquitted?

Banquo said:
(2) to prevent the client from committing a crime or fraud that is reasonably certain to result in substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another and in furtherance of which the client has used or is using the lawyer's services;

(3) to prevent, mitigate or rectify substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another that is reasonably certain to result or has resulted from the client's commission of a crime or fraud in furtherance of which the client has used the lawyer's services;
Click to expand...
 
that sounds about right, but I suspect that it's going to be a bit more nuanced than that. for example, I imagine (purely speculating here, mods feel free to pwn this post) that there needs to be an identifiable victim. so the knowledge that the hitman will probably be hired to kill 'someone' in the future would not be enough to force the lawyer to breach confidentiality, but the knowledge that the hitman will probably be hired to kill Ashton Kutcher would be. well, ok, maybe not Ashton Kutcher. but someone else.
 
i saw this thing on court tv where a woman was convicted of murder; however, they implied that another person that was a suspect told "information that would have made it that ___(insert woman's name here) wouldnt have been convicted" (aka implying he confessed).

she went to the judge and told him, but he wouldnt' let her testify and she said that if she goes public she would loose her license to practice, so there u go
 
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