South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

From Fourth Amendment.com:

Last month federal agents executed a search warrant on the office of lawyer George Argie in Cleveland, Ohio, seeking information about one of his clients. The warrant was one of many issued as part of a federal investigation into corruption by Cuyahoga County officials:

Investigators are examining whether Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora and Auditor Frank Russo steered the construction contracts to businesses that provided free improvements to their homes . . . agents want to know whether Dimora and Russo offered jobs in exchange for favors or used their influence in judicial proceedings, decision-making at the top levels of county government and determinations of how much taxes people and companies should pay.

The agents that searched Argie's office took items related only to his work with one of his clients who is under investigation, and Argie was served with a grand jury subpoena to produce additional documents.

Argie says he does not think he is a target; they only wanted information regarding his representation of his client. My question is, if Argie is not a target, how in the hell does a judge sign a search warrant allowing law enforcement to go through his files? One of the first things that we learn regarding the attorney - client privilege is that it is sacrosanct. If a client's confidences cannot be maintained, clients will not be able to confide in their attorneys, and they are denied effective representation.

The appropriate method of obtaining information from an attorney's files is through subpoena, which the attorney can move to quash, providing for a hearing before an impartial judge who can review the materials in camera if necessary to determine if attorney-client privilege applies. Law enforcement cannot walk into lawyer's offices, search through clients' files, and take what they want (as they did in Keith Gore's office in Texas).

If George Argie is the target of a valid investigation, then a search warrant for his office may be justified. If Argie's client waived the attorney client privilege, then Argie can turn over his client's information and a search warrant would not have been necessary. But if Argie was not a target and his client did not consent, this is a serious problem - law enforcement cannot bypass judicial review and ignore attorney client privilege in their search for evidence.