{"id":830,"date":"2021-04-06T22:59:36","date_gmt":"2021-04-07T02:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/in-print\/two-rights-collide-determining-when-attorney-client-privilege-should-yield-to-a-defendants-right-to-compulsory-process-or-confrontation\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:09:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:09:32","slug":"two-rights-collide-determining-when-attorney-client-privilege-should-yield-to-a-defendants-right-to-compulsory-process-or-confrontation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/in-print\/volume-58-number-2-spring-2021\/two-rights-collide-determining-when-attorney-client-privilege-should-yield-to-a-defendants-right-to-compulsory-process-or-confrontation\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Rights Collide: Determining When Attorney-Client Privilege Should Yield to a Defendant&#8217;s Right to Compulsory Process or Confrontation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>In a criminal trial, the Sixth Amendment\u2019s Compulsory Process Clause protects a defendant\u2019s right to gather evidence in his favor. Similarly, the Confrontation Clause guards a defendant\u2019s right to effectively cross-examine those who bear witness against him. At times, however, these rights collide with a witness\u2019s assertion of the attorney-client privilege. The Supreme Court declined to decide how to handle such a collision in <em>Swidler &amp; Berlin v. United States<\/em>. And the courts that have answered this question have fractured. Some suggest the attorney-client privilege yields to a defendant\u2019s Sixth Amendment rights. Some hold that the attorney-client privilege is always impenetrable. Finally, others conduct fact-specific balancing tests to determine whether the information at issue is sufficiently probative to justify piercing the privilege. This Note contends that each of these approaches misses the mark. It first argues that the categorical approaches to this conflict ignore the Supreme Court\u2019s direction to balance a defendant\u2019s Sixth Amendment interests against an evidentiary rule\u2019s purpose when the two collide. It then contends that fact-specific balancing tests disregard a client\u2019s need for certainty regarding the attorney-client privilege\u2019s scope.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>After critiquing current approaches, this Note provides a new standard for resolving conflicts between a defendant\u2019s Sixth Amendment rights and the attorney-client privilege. Under the proposed standard, the attorney- client privilege will be penetrable unless the relevant communication would subject the privilege-holder to criminal liability. Such a standard both provides a client with certainty regarding when the privilege may be pierced and respects the need to balance a defendant\u2019s Sixth Amendment interests against an evidentiary rule\u2019s purpose. This, in turn, protects the defendant\u2019s constitutional right to put forth probative evidence, while simultaneously ensuring that the attorney-client relationship does not unduly suffer.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/04\/58-2-Teague-Two-Rights-Collide.pdf\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0In a criminal trial, the Sixth Amendment\u2019s Compulsory Process Clause protects a defendant\u2019s right to gather evidence in his favor. Similarly, the Confrontation Clause guards a defendant\u2019s right to effectively [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2240,"featured_media":0,"parent":907,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-830","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2240"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":856,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/830\/revisions\/856"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}