Judge signs search warrant for attorney's files
Judge Mark Rusch in Frisco Texas signed a search warrant authorizing police to search defense attorney Mark Gore's files, seeking items and letters written from his client to his client's wife. A hearing was scheduled in four days before a judge to determine whether the information was subject to privilege and if the police were entitled to it, and yet the prosecution sought Rusch's aid in obtaining the information before the hearing was held.
What is wrong with this?
1) Instead of waiting for a judicial determination, the police and prosecution seek a search warrant to go through the defense's file and take what they want.
2) A judge actually signed an ex parte search warrant, knowing that a hearing on the matter had been scheduled where both sides could be heard.
3) As noted by Simple Justice, In order to find the information they were looking for, agents of the prosecution went through the defendant's entire file, and most likely compromised other privileged case files as well.
The prosecutor is seeking to disqualify the defense attorney from the case so he can call him as a witness. The Texas and the National Associations of Criminal Defense Lawyers have gotten involved in the case and are assisting the defense attorney. The defense attorney has been forced to retain his own attorney in the matter, is moving to recuse the judge that signed the search warrant, and is moving for the return of and to exclude from trial all materials that were seized from his office.
This appears to be an example of dirty prosecution pool at its worst. The prosecution and Judge Rusch have violated Gore's client's Sixth Amendment right to counsel, violated Gore's Fourth Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and subverted justice by placing the items in the prosecutor's hands before a judicial determination of the prosecution's right to have them. If you are the law and you want something, take it. Want to peek in defense counsel's files? Get a search warrant.
I sincerely hope that more information comes to light that could somehow justify the DA's and judge's actions in this case.
