Summary
stating that "because maintenance of the attorney-client privilege up to its proper limits has substantial importance to the administration of justice, and because an appeal after disclosure of the privileged communication is an inadequate remedy, the extraordinary remedy of mandamus is appropriate"
Summary of this case from In re Avantel, S.AOpinion
No. 113.
Argued December 16, 1970 Decided January 12, 1971
423 F.2d 487, affirmed by an equally divided Court.
Lee A. Freeman, Jr., argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Lee A. Freeman, William J. Scott, Attorney General of Illinois, and John P. Meyer, Special Assistant Attorney General, Chauncey H. Browning, Jr., Attorney General of West Virginia, and Gene Hal Williams, Deputy Attorney General, Theodore L. Sendak, Attorney General of Indiana, and Wendell C. Hamacher, Assistant Attorney General, Crawford C. Martin, Attorney General of Texas, and Wayne R. Rodgers, Assistant Attorney General, Paul W. Brown, Attorney General of Ohio, and Donald Weckstein and Ted B. Clevenger, Assistant Attorneys General, Douglas M. Head, Attorney General of Minnesota, and Eric Miller, Assistant Attorney General, Robert W. Warren, Attorney General of Wisconsin, and George F. Sieker and Theodore L. Priebe, Assistant Attorneys General, Kent Frizzel, Attorney General of Kansas, and J. Eugene Balloun, Special Assistant Attorney General, Richard L. Curry, David J. Young, Charles E. Griffith III, and Robert E. Kendrick.
H. Templeton Brown argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Robert L. Stern, Lee N. Abrams, W. Donald McSweeney, Earl E. Pollock, Peter Gruenberger, Conrad W. Oberdorfer, Earl A. Jinkinson, Edgar E. Barton, Leo Rosen, Roger Hunting, and Samuel Weisbard.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed by David T. Searls, Harry M. Reasoner, Ray D. Henson, and John C. Bartlett for the American Bar Association et al.; by Andrew P. Miller, Attorney General, and Anthony F. Troy and T. J. Markow, Assistant Attorneys General, for the Commonwealth of Virginia; and by Samuel W. Murphy, Jr., and George S. Leisure, Jr., for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York et al. Edward S. Irons and Mary Helen Sears, pro sese, filed a brief as amici curiae.
The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.