Arrest Raises Alarm on Accounting Law (attorney destroying evidence in a child pornography case)

[Omaha Steve]

http://money.excite.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?news_id=ap-d8nlhadg1&

Arrest Raises Alarm on Accounting Law

Sunday March 4, 1:50 PM EST

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — The arrest of a prominent attorney on charges of destroying evidence in a child pornography investigation is raising alarm bells that a law targeting corporate accounting schemes could be used to prosecute lawyers over work done on their clients' behalf.

"Every criminal defense lawyer in the country has to be alarmed at the indictment," said New York University law professor Stephen Gillers. "It's going to upset a lot of assumptions about how lawyers can represent clients. I think this is a boundary-pushing case."

Philip Russell was charged Feb. 16 with destroying a computer that contained child pornography at Christ Church in Greenwich. Former President George H.W. Bush attended the church while growing up and funeral services for his parents were held there.

Russell, the former attorney for the church, is accused of obstructing an FBI investigation that led to the January conviction of the church's music director, Robert Tate, for possessing child pornography.

FULL story at link.

[pennylane100]

1. I am no legal expert

but if possession child pornography is illegal and the lawyer destroyed it, isn't that wrong. He could have argued in court that the material was covered by privilege but he should not have destroyed it.

[northzax]

3. but here is an interesting rub

if possession of child porn is a crime, which it both is and should be, then any destruction of child porn is a crime. in fact, any destruction of anything that coulod ever be evidence in a crime is a crime, whether or not there is an investigation. Think of a parent who finds drugs in their kids' room. You can reasonably forsee that, if the police knew about this, there would be an investigation, right? therefore flushing your kid's stash, an age old trick, is now obstruction of justice.

Say you get an email that contains child porn for whatever reason, your immediate instinct is to delete it, right? (at least mine would be) well, technically, you can reasonably forsee that authorities would want to investigate this, so you cannot delete it.

it's a wee bit troublesome, I find. that you can be prosecuted for destroying something illegal, even if you didn't even know of an investigation into it.

[pennylane100]

4. I agree with you that it is troubling to destroy something illegal

if you did not know there was an investigation. But as I understand it, the church had already isolated the computer and had "wrapped and sealed it" That should have alerted the attorney to the fact that there was some kind of investigation going on regarding material he clearly knew to be illegal.

[gatorboy]

2. Bush attended the church, huh?

Something like that could make the religoud right look awfully bad.

Wonder how high up those "destroy evidence" orders came...

[EST]

5. This must be one of the reasons lawyers and incipient

lawyers are drawn to the profession. I would not want to be a lawyer, or particularly a judge, having to discern the right and wrong of internally inconsistent directives.
The rascal who was involved in obstruction, particularly an issue that is so knee-jerk heinous as child pornography and its attendant ethical pitfalls, should get a whack-that's a good thing. The law that allows him to get the whack, or the most convenient one, allows perfectly innocent people to be unfairly targeted and persecuted, as well as prosecuted.

What a massive fu*kup!

I watched in horror as both justice and the congress sat on their hands and permitted twenty nine packer truck loads of records to be shredded and hauled off to destruction-obstruction on a massive scale-with the blessings of the people responsible for virtually every social problem in this country.

There are times when I despair of the human race, unconvinced that it is worth saving.