Laws Do Not Govern the Soul (but Moral Laws do)

Statue dedicated to C.S. Lewis in England

“The Moral Law isn’t any one instinct or any set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts. (…) The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There’s not one of them which won’t make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it isn’t. If you leave out justice you’ll find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials ‘for the sake of humanity,’ and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.” -C.S. Lewis

Some of you may remember the story of Alton Logan. CBS’s 60 Minutes did a piece on this case three years ago now, you can watch the video by clicking here. The unsettling story is unfortunately told like this. Alton Logan was convicted of murder, sentenced to life in prison. However Alton Logan did not commit murder. Two other attorneys knew that Alton Logan was innocent, Alton Logan was not their client nor were they involved in the case. Yet they knew he was innocent and did nothing. These two attorneys had a separate client, an malevolent man who admitted to the attorneys in confidentiality that he was in fact the one who committed the murder that Alton Logan was convicted of. What’s worse is that this despicable human being told his attorneys that he killed the person with a smile. He was quite pleased that he had gotten away with it and another had taken the fall for him. Yet the attorneys did nothing. This remained the case for 26 years. For 26 years Alton Logan sat in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit. Only after the actual murderer died, did the attorneys finally tell their story, because their confidentiality agreement with the true murderer ended. They did so because of the laws of confidentiality. Laws and morals are not synonymous. Laws are chained to the boundaries of the state, morals matter universally and are within the jurisdiction of the soul.

The law by which the lawyers hid behind was this. ABA Rule of Professional Responsibility 1.6, which states

(a) A lawyer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of the client unless the client gives informed consent, the disclosure is impliedly authorized in order to carry out the representation or the disclosure is permitted by paragraph (b)

(b) A lawyer may reveal information relating to the representation of a client to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes necessary

(1) to prevent reasonably certain death or substantial harm;

(2) to prevent the client from committing a crime or fraud…

(3)to prevent, mitigate or rectify substantial injury to … financial interests…

While there is more to this rule, for the purposes of this issue those are the three relevant exceptions of when a lawyer may reveal otherwise confidential information provided by a client. To be sure, client confidentiality is extremely important in order to ensure complete and honest candor between a lawyer and a client. We have recognized this principal for centuries, this is nothing new and I think this principal should continue for different reasons not discussed here. However, as C.S. Lewis suggests, we can never follow something so blindly, like laws passed by Congress or the Judiciary, that we violate both Moral Law and Justice. The same Justice the rules were meant to ensure.

Unfortunately for Alton Logan he didn’t fit neatly into any of these above exceptions to the rule. The first category was to prevent certain death or substantial (physical) harm, he was given life in prison and thus wasn’t subject to any physical infliction of harm. The lawyers couldn’t fit under the second section, “to prevent the client from committing a crime or fraud” because the crime already occurred. The language of the law is to prevent future crimes and not past ones. The last one, “to prevent…injury to…financial interests” might have some weight in that Alton Logan would go to jail for life and surrender any financial interests he would have in the process. However this is sort of a stretch of the original intention of the law in itself.

It is apparent that there were no easy answers for these lawyers in the Alton Logan case, however that doesn’t let them off the hook. It is quite possible that if they would have permitted this information to slip they may not only have lost their jobs but also their profession. However, if I may quote C.S. Lewis one more time:

“There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do.”

It is clear that there was not an easy road ahead for the lawyers. However, instead of sitting on this information for 26 years and waiting for their client to die, I believe they could have and should have tried to get the information out under one of the three exceptions above. I would have argued that he is suffering from substantial physical harm in the first exception. Showing how terrible prisons can be and their squalid conditions at times might have convinced the judge. I would have also tried for the third exception, stating that his financial interests were being devastated. I think that the third exception offered the best chance. I also think that many judges would be sympathetic to the situation that the lawyers found themselves in and perhaps permit to be told.

However, there were no guarantees that they could have successfully litigated an exception and kept their jobs. Although, I believe it was their duty to try. Lawyers are paid to use their brains, in this case these lawyers chose to not use them. And in the end if the lawyers did get disbarred, even though they would have been guilty under the law, in the court of the soul they would have been innocent. In the interest of protecting their client and upholding the law, they became “devils” themselves and enemies of justice. Again, I am not advocating for every defense lawyer to reveal all incriminating evidence of their clients however the law cannot be the sole barometer of what is right and wrong.

The Point:

So what brings this to mind tonight? I’ll keep it short and sweet. Holding to the law and not Moral law will lead to a perversion of justice. This was the case with Nazis in their war trials, who claimed, “we were just following orders.” This was is the case for many who covered up the crimes in the Enron scandal. Lastly, and most recently, to anyone on the Penn State administration who truly sought to obscure justice are themselves guilty, even if the law does not say so. We are all held in the end to law higher than our local statutes. We are accountable for the laws that govern our soul.