A Question of Confidence

Can a lawyer who learns that his client has committed a crime for which he has not been charged keep that knowledge to himself? The question has come up frequently during the past year in connection with the Watergate investigations now unfolding in Washington.

Last week the issue was raised starkly in a murder trial in rural Lake Pleasant, N.Y. Two attorneys for a man accused of one killing revealed that they had known for six months of two other murders committed by their client. They had kept silent because they felt bound by the confidentiality of the lawyer-client relationship.

The court-appointed attorneys--Francis Beige and Frank Armani --made their disclosure during the trial of Robert Garrow, 38, a Syracuse bakery worker accused of murdering a student, Philip Domblewski, 18, last sum mer when Domblewski was camping in the Adirondacks. As the lawyers told it, in August, shortly after Garrow was flushed out of the mountains and arrested by a state police posse, he told Beige that he had raped and killed a woman in an abandoned mine shaft. Some three weeks later, Beige found the mine--and the body of Susan Petz, 21. She had been missing since July, although the body of her camping companion, Daniel Porter, 23, had been found in the area. Then, late last September, another Garrow confession led the lawyers to the body of another victim: Alicia Hauck, 16, a high school student who had also been missing since July.

The lawyers did not report what they knew about the additional murders, even after the bodies were discovered by accident several months later. What finally prompted the two attorneys to talk was Garrow's own testimony. During his trial, Garrow blurted out details that seemed linked to the murders of the Petz and Hauck girls and Porter. Once Garrow spoke, Beige and Armani felt relieved of their obligation to keep their information confidential. "We both, knowing how the parents must feel, wanted to advise them where the bodies were," said Beige. "But since it was a privileged communication, we could not reveal any information that was given to us in confidence."

Sacred Trust. Syracuse Police Chief Thomas Sardino and Onondaga County District Attorney Jon Holcombe are looking into the possibility of filing charges against Beige and Armani. A few attorneys have also expressed disappointment at the pair's silence.

However shocking the two lawyers' silence may have been, it appears to be legally sound. The American Bar Association's Code of Professional Responsibility upholds the confidentiality of the lawyer-client relationship. Almost unanimously, A.B.A. members agree that this "sacred trust" is essential if the attorney is to represent his client properly. "The conduct of the lawyers is absolutely correct," says Hofstra University Law Dean Monroe Freedman. "If they had acted otherwise, it would be a serious violation of their professional responsibility."

Surprisingly, no individuals, not even lawyers, are generally required to report crimes that have been committed (as opposed to crimes in preparation); only if they actually tamper with evidence are they vulnerable to charges of obstruction of justice. Under U.S. law, an attorney's sacred trust belongs to his client, not to the court.

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