Raid raises questions about law privileges
Dublin Core
Title
Raid raises questions about law privileges
Subject
Police Raids
Criminal Defense Lawyers
Description
The article discusses the raid of a criminal defense lawyer named William A. Hunter. The raid secured his records and files. The raid was due to federal investigators suspecting Hunter of helping his client launder money. The article discusses the problems with assuming criminal defense lawyers know where their clients income comes from. It also discusses how these raids raise questions on client confidentiality.
Creator
Anderson, Liz
Source
Anderson, Liz. "Raid Raises Questions about Law Privileges." Rutland Herald (Rutland, VT), Jun. 15, 1995.
Publisher
HIST 298, University of Mary Washington
Date
1995-06-15
Rights
The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source.
Format
2 JPGs
300 DPI
Language
English
Coverage
Rutland, VT
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
The raid by federal investigators on Cavendish lawyer William A. Hunter’s home and office has raised troubling questions for many in the state’s legal community about the sanctity of their offices and how much they are expected to know about the clients they serve.
Hunter, 41, is the subject of a federal investigation into whether he helped a client in Windsor launder money through a corporation set up to purchase and renovate real estate.
Federal investigators raided Hunter’s home and basement office at 3 a.m. Friday, seizing files on three clients as well as Hunter’s computer equipment.
Vermont Law School Professor Michael Mello, who teaches constitutional law and legal ethics, said he believed it was the first raid of its kind in Vermont.
The emergency raid was authorized by the U.S. Magistrate Jerome J. Niedermeier after an investigator expressed concerns that Hunter might destroy evidence of criminal activity if alerted to the arrests on Thursday of Hunter’s client and the client’s sister.
Hunter has said that equipment seized contains electronic files on many other clients as well as on those subject to the investigation. He said his office was “crippled” without it.
Hunter has not been charged in the case and denies any knowledge of any illegal activities on the part
Of his client, Frank H. Sargent Jr. Sargent, 26, has pleaded innocent to a federal indictment charging him with cocaine distribution. He is free on an unsecured bond. Hunter said Wednesday he had plans to meet with federal prosecutors some time in the next week and had hired Rutland lawyer Peter Hall to represent him. “As a lawyer I would never advise anyone to deal with an agency that has identified them as a suspect on their own,” he said.
U.S. Attorney Charles Tetzlaff said he would not comment on any aspect of the case “as a matter of policy.”
[new title: confidentiality concerns]
Although lawyers claim a confidentiality when dealing with their clients, there are exceptions under which that confidentiality can be broken. One exception, used in the Hunter search, is if investigators can establish to a judge that they have cause to believe the lawyer’s files contain evidence of an ongoing planned crime.
Many lawyers contacted objected to the timing and what they saw as the invasiveness of the raid. Several expressed concern that federal investigators made a claim that Hunter might destroy the files.
Several lawyers consulted said a troubling issue in Hunter’s case is the seizure of his computer files and the issues that raises about the confidential relationship between lawyer and a client.
A federal prosecutor unaffiliated with the Vermont office participated in the search to advise the investigators on matters concerning private attorney-client files and is charged with reviewing the seized files before delivering them to the Vermont federal prosecutors handling the case.
Agents who searched Hunter’s home are under court orders not to disclose anything they saw in Hunter’s confidential files. The same orders will apply to FBI computer analysts charged with reviewing Hunter’s computer system.
The search warrant executed at Hunter’s home provides extensive descriptions of how the computer files and equipment are to be handled by agents. It provides for its return within a “reasonable time,” but sets no deadline.
David Putter, co-chair of the legal panel for state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said searches have become more complicated by the computer age because it may not be easy to immediately tell which files are pertinent to an investigation and which are not.
He said in that vein, the search warrant for Hunter’s office didn’t satisfy him that enough steps were being taken to protect information on clients unrelated to the government’s investigation.
Putter said the presence of another federal attorney reviewing the files from Hunter’s office did not provide enough of an independent review for his satisfaction.
Vermont defender General Robert Appel said the Hunter case and the seizure of his files may “cause clients to pause before revealing confidences in the future, which in my mind undermines the attorney-client relationship.”
Mello agreed. “If my client thinks the feds are going to be able to bust into my home and rifle through my files, then I think that reduces significantly the amount of confidence that my client will place in me when I tell her this is just between you and I,” he said.
Mello said the Hunter case had already changed the way he dealt with records in his own home. “I now look at everything in my files and wonder how it will look if it is seized by federal agents,” he said.
Putter said that he was also concerned about whether any files were seized pertaining to Vermont Law Week, a weekly review and summary of state supreme Court decisions published by Hunter’s first amendment rights by interfering with his right to publish, he said.
Hunter said the files were on seized computers, but said he might be able to publish an issue by early next week if federal prosecutors would give him a copy of his mailing list. He declined to address any First Amendment concerns.
[new title: Raids Increasing]
Raids on law offices are increasing nationwide and are of growing concern to defense lawyers, according to Frank Jackson, a Dallas defense lawyer who serves as the co-chair of a lawyer assistance committee for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
“All too often government entities target lawyers as being involved in criminal activities when the lawyer is actually just performing perfectly legal services and comporting themselves in the highest tradition of the bat,” Jackson said.
He said clients often keep their lawyers in the dark about their criminal activities and a lawyer may take steps for a client “he deems rather innocuous that in hindsight can be considered criminal involvement by government authorities, and they raid these offices in hopes of confirming their suspicions.”
Jackson said such raids threaten the public perception that lawyers’ offices are sanctuaries and have made lawyers frightened of talking on controversial cases.
In particular, government prosecutors seem to focus in on lawyers who have been involved with drug cases, Jackson said. In some cases, he said, the government has succeeded in recovering payments made to lawyers by clients using drug money.
Jackson said defense lawyers nationwide would likely “have to draw the line and test the power of government” in these situations.
[new title: A ’Dicey Issue’]
Lawyers also said the Hunter case raised the issue of how much a lawyer is expected to know about the sources of a client’s income.
Putter noted that “attorneys don’t generally sit down and ask a client what their source of income is, where they got they money.”
Mello said the question of how much a lawyer is expected to know about a client and the client’s finances is an “extremely dicey issue” that he debates with students in his ethics class.
He theorized that in the present climate, lawyers are becoming more averse to risk and are more likely to raise such questions with their clients.
Jackson maintained that lawyers shouldn’t feel responsible for investigating the finances of their clients.
“I would day that if you’re a substantial criminal practitioner you have suspicions of everyone who walks through the door,” Jackson said. “If they walk through to hire you for a criminal citation, you assume they didn’t light a candle at vesper services last Sunday. If we were to assume the money came from criminal activity we would all have to lock our doors right now.”
[end page]
Hunter, 41, is the subject of a federal investigation into whether he helped a client in Windsor launder money through a corporation set up to purchase and renovate real estate.
Federal investigators raided Hunter’s home and basement office at 3 a.m. Friday, seizing files on three clients as well as Hunter’s computer equipment.
Vermont Law School Professor Michael Mello, who teaches constitutional law and legal ethics, said he believed it was the first raid of its kind in Vermont.
The emergency raid was authorized by the U.S. Magistrate Jerome J. Niedermeier after an investigator expressed concerns that Hunter might destroy evidence of criminal activity if alerted to the arrests on Thursday of Hunter’s client and the client’s sister.
Hunter has said that equipment seized contains electronic files on many other clients as well as on those subject to the investigation. He said his office was “crippled” without it.
Hunter has not been charged in the case and denies any knowledge of any illegal activities on the part
Of his client, Frank H. Sargent Jr. Sargent, 26, has pleaded innocent to a federal indictment charging him with cocaine distribution. He is free on an unsecured bond. Hunter said Wednesday he had plans to meet with federal prosecutors some time in the next week and had hired Rutland lawyer Peter Hall to represent him. “As a lawyer I would never advise anyone to deal with an agency that has identified them as a suspect on their own,” he said.
U.S. Attorney Charles Tetzlaff said he would not comment on any aspect of the case “as a matter of policy.”
[new title: confidentiality concerns]
Although lawyers claim a confidentiality when dealing with their clients, there are exceptions under which that confidentiality can be broken. One exception, used in the Hunter search, is if investigators can establish to a judge that they have cause to believe the lawyer’s files contain evidence of an ongoing planned crime.
Many lawyers contacted objected to the timing and what they saw as the invasiveness of the raid. Several expressed concern that federal investigators made a claim that Hunter might destroy the files.
Several lawyers consulted said a troubling issue in Hunter’s case is the seizure of his computer files and the issues that raises about the confidential relationship between lawyer and a client.
A federal prosecutor unaffiliated with the Vermont office participated in the search to advise the investigators on matters concerning private attorney-client files and is charged with reviewing the seized files before delivering them to the Vermont federal prosecutors handling the case.
Agents who searched Hunter’s home are under court orders not to disclose anything they saw in Hunter’s confidential files. The same orders will apply to FBI computer analysts charged with reviewing Hunter’s computer system.
The search warrant executed at Hunter’s home provides extensive descriptions of how the computer files and equipment are to be handled by agents. It provides for its return within a “reasonable time,” but sets no deadline.
David Putter, co-chair of the legal panel for state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said searches have become more complicated by the computer age because it may not be easy to immediately tell which files are pertinent to an investigation and which are not.
He said in that vein, the search warrant for Hunter’s office didn’t satisfy him that enough steps were being taken to protect information on clients unrelated to the government’s investigation.
Putter said the presence of another federal attorney reviewing the files from Hunter’s office did not provide enough of an independent review for his satisfaction.
Vermont defender General Robert Appel said the Hunter case and the seizure of his files may “cause clients to pause before revealing confidences in the future, which in my mind undermines the attorney-client relationship.”
Mello agreed. “If my client thinks the feds are going to be able to bust into my home and rifle through my files, then I think that reduces significantly the amount of confidence that my client will place in me when I tell her this is just between you and I,” he said.
Mello said the Hunter case had already changed the way he dealt with records in his own home. “I now look at everything in my files and wonder how it will look if it is seized by federal agents,” he said.
Putter said that he was also concerned about whether any files were seized pertaining to Vermont Law Week, a weekly review and summary of state supreme Court decisions published by Hunter’s first amendment rights by interfering with his right to publish, he said.
Hunter said the files were on seized computers, but said he might be able to publish an issue by early next week if federal prosecutors would give him a copy of his mailing list. He declined to address any First Amendment concerns.
[new title: Raids Increasing]
Raids on law offices are increasing nationwide and are of growing concern to defense lawyers, according to Frank Jackson, a Dallas defense lawyer who serves as the co-chair of a lawyer assistance committee for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
“All too often government entities target lawyers as being involved in criminal activities when the lawyer is actually just performing perfectly legal services and comporting themselves in the highest tradition of the bat,” Jackson said.
He said clients often keep their lawyers in the dark about their criminal activities and a lawyer may take steps for a client “he deems rather innocuous that in hindsight can be considered criminal involvement by government authorities, and they raid these offices in hopes of confirming their suspicions.”
Jackson said such raids threaten the public perception that lawyers’ offices are sanctuaries and have made lawyers frightened of talking on controversial cases.
In particular, government prosecutors seem to focus in on lawyers who have been involved with drug cases, Jackson said. In some cases, he said, the government has succeeded in recovering payments made to lawyers by clients using drug money.
Jackson said defense lawyers nationwide would likely “have to draw the line and test the power of government” in these situations.
[new title: A ’Dicey Issue’]
Lawyers also said the Hunter case raised the issue of how much a lawyer is expected to know about the sources of a client’s income.
Putter noted that “attorneys don’t generally sit down and ask a client what their source of income is, where they got they money.”
Mello said the question of how much a lawyer is expected to know about a client and the client’s finances is an “extremely dicey issue” that he debates with students in his ethics class.
He theorized that in the present climate, lawyers are becoming more averse to risk and are more likely to raise such questions with their clients.
Jackson maintained that lawyers shouldn’t feel responsible for investigating the finances of their clients.
“I would day that if you’re a substantial criminal practitioner you have suspicions of everyone who walks through the door,” Jackson said. “If they walk through to hire you for a criminal citation, you assume they didn’t light a candle at vesper services last Sunday. If we were to assume the money came from criminal activity we would all have to lock our doors right now.”
[end page]
Original Format
Newspaper
Vol. No./Issue No.
Vol. 135/No. 143
Contributor of the Digital Item
Riley, Charles
Student Editor of the Digital Item
Dickinson, Terra
Files
Citation
Anderson, Liz, “Raid raises questions about law privileges,” HIST299, accessed March 12, 2026, https://hist299.umwhistory.org/items/show/168.