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1 - Defining the problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2014

W. Bradley Wendel
W. Bradley Wendel
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

Role-differentiated morality

A security guard was murdered and another guard seriously injured during the robbery of a store in a big city – it could be Manchester, Auckland, Calgary, Los Angeles, Johannesburg – anywhere in the common law world. The surviving guard identified two men, Logan and Hope, as the perpetrators. A week later, a man named Wilson was arrested for an unrelated crime, the murder of two police officers in the same city. Hope heard through jailhouse gossip about the arrest of Wilson and told his lawyer that he had committed the robbery with Wilson, not Logan. Hope’s lawyer communicated this information to Wilson’s lawyers, who went to see Wilson at the jail. Wilson confessed to his lawyers that he had committed the robbery with Hope and that he had in fact shot the security guards. Wilson declined to make a statement to the police, but the lawyers prepared an affidavit (a sworn statement) summarizing his statement, which they kept in a locked safe. Meanwhile, not knowing of Wilson’s admission of responsibility, prosecutors filed murder charges against Logan and Hope. Based on the testimony of the surviving guard, both were convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. (Eyewitness identification is notoriously unreliable; the defense lawyer tried to establish this point, but the jury convicted the defendants anyway.) Wilson was convicted in a separate trial of murdering the two police officers and was sentenced to two life sentences without possibility of parole.

Imagine that you are one of the lawyers representing Wilson. What do you do with the knowledge that an innocent person will be spending the rest of his life in prison for a crime committed by your client? Perhaps the answer is to be found in a code of professional ethics, applicable to lawyers representing clients in a situation like this one. You consult the rules in your jurisdiction and read the following:

A lawyer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of a client unless the client consents after consultation … A lawyer may reveal such information to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes necessary (1) to prevent reasonably certain death or substantial bodily harm.

Type
Chapter
Information
Ethics and Law
An Introduction
 , pp. 3 - 20
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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References

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  • Defining the problem
  • W. Bradley Wendel, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: Ethics and Law
  • Online publication: 05 October 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107337114.003
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  • Defining the problem
  • W. Bradley Wendel, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: Ethics and Law
  • Online publication: 05 October 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107337114.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Defining the problem
  • W. Bradley Wendel, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: Ethics and Law
  • Online publication: 05 October 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107337114.003
Available formats
×