Non-unanimous acquittals and lawyer-customer privilege

PETITIONS OF THE Week

This week we spotlight cert petitions that question the Supreme Courtroom to consider, between other items, whether or not the justices’ choice to avoid non-unanimous convictions in Louisiana also prohibits Puerto Rico from authorizing non-unanimous acquittals, and no matter whether a law business can defend beneath lawyer-client privilege communications for which authorized tips was a significant, but not most important, goal.

Right after Ramos, legal defendant asks justices to maintain non-unanimous acquittals in Puerto Rico

In Ramos v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court dominated that states could only convict defendants of really serious offenses with a unanimous jury verdict. In Centeno v. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Nelson Daniel Centeno asks the justices now to determine no matter whether Ramos stops Puerto Rico from allowing for non-unanimous acquittals. Because 1952, when Puerto Rico enacted its structure, its invoice of rights has offered that the votes of 9 of twelve jurors sufficed for a verdict, no matter if to convict or acquit. Right after Ramos, the Supreme Courtroom of Puerto Rico ruled that the situation “overturned our constitutional clause.” As a end result, the prosecution right before Centeno’s demo asked for an instruction to the jurors that they “must all concur and vote, unanimously, irrespective of whether to locate the defendant responsible or to come across him not guilty.”

Centeno argues that Ramos only prevents Puerto Rico from authorizing non-unanimous convictions, not acquittals. The demo court docket and intermediate appellate courtroom each agreed, ruling that Ramos was only about convictions. The Puerto Rico Supreme Courtroom, on the other hand, disagreed, ruling that Ramos used to both. In his petition, Centeno maintains that the Sixth Amendment only protects defendants in opposition to the govt, not the prosecution. He also observes, as did two dissenting justices, that the Supreme Court of Oregon (the only state aside from Louisiana that licensed non-unanimous convictions prior to Ramos) has ruled because Ramos that the conclusion does not prohibit non-unanimous acquittals.

Legislation agency asks justices to think about the scope of legal professional-shopper privilege for twin-reason documents

In In re Grand Jury, the petitioner (whose identity is redacted in the petition) is a law agency inquiring the justices to clarify the scope of legal professional-client privilege when a conversation with a shopper requires legal and non-authorized information. Right after the agency obtained a grand jury subpoena searching for documents relevant to a criminal investigation of its customer, the firm generated over 1,700 documents but withheld other individuals under legal professional-consumer privilege. Some of these communications incorporated both the firm’s legal advice about organizing for tax penalties of expatriation and non-authorized advice about preparing tax returns.

The district courtroom used a major-intent check to these dual-purpose communications, shielding all those documents made “for the major purpose” of obtaining or delivering legal assistance and requiring disclosure of all those for which “the principal or predominate objective was about the procedural aspects of the preparation” of tax returns. The U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the 9th Circuit affirmed, declining to adopt the method in an view by then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In the D.C. Circuit, a dual-goal interaction may possibly slide below lawyer-shopper privilege so lengthy as authorized tips represents a important function for the communication, even if not the major intent. In its petition, the agency also observes that the ways of equally the 9th and D.C. Circuits conflict with that of the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, in which a dual-objective conversation is not privileged, even if legal advice represented the most important purpose.

These and other petitions of the 7 days are beneath:

In re Grand Jury
21-1397
Concern: Whether a conversation involving both equally authorized and non-authorized information is shielded by attorney-customer privilege when acquiring or providing authorized tips was a person of the sizeable needs at the rear of the interaction.

Centeno v. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
21-1398
Issue: No matter whether the Supreme Court’s choice in Ramos v. Louisiana bars Puerto Rico from continuing to authorize non-unanimous acquittals.

Outdoor One Communications LLC v. Constitution Township of Canton, Michigan
21-1402
Concerns: (1) Regardless of whether a speaker ought to to start with interact in self-censorship to have standing to assault the constitutionality of a prior restraint on its speech and (2) whether or not a speaker lacks standing to obstacle a facially content material-primarily based regulation of its speech if a courtroom concludes the speaker gets “generous” therapy below the plan.

Ferris v. Scism
21-1422
Challenges: (1) Whether or not the Fourth Modification necessitates a police officer to wait around until eventually an armed suspect points the barrel of his handgun in the officer’s route before the officer can deploy deadly drive to protect himself and innocents in the space (2) no matter whether the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit erred in denying Detective Brett Ferris skilled immunity without even figuring out what materials info outlined the immunity questions (3) regardless of whether the 2nd Circuit erred in deferring the capable immunity queries to the “post-verdict” stage of the trial so that immunity would only be tackled in the function a jury issued a verdict in opposition to Ferris and (4) no matter whether the 2nd Circuit’s choice down below disregarded the Supreme Court’s repeated holdings that qualified immunity is immunity from suit, not just immunity from judgment, when it declined to determine or make a decision the immunity inquiries even with a sturdy record made up of undisputed specifics.