If I kill someone and tell my wife, she would not be able to testify against me in a court of law. That goes the same for my lawyer, doctor, or minister. Wha if I tell my doctors RN? Or LPN? What if my doctor is a DO? Or what if I tell my rabbi? Or if I have a spirtual leader? And finially wha if I tell someone with a PHD?
Your presit and your lawyer IIRC are the only ones who can pull that off and your preist will most likely encourage you to turn yourself in. Dunno about psych types but since your crime has nothing to do with your care or your medical condition, plan on being reported. No cite but the wife thing IIRC is an urban legend.
No urban legend there. At least, in most cases.
Doctor confidentially is valid unless it has anything to do with anyone getting hurt or you hurting yourself. I’ll try and find a cite on that.
Privileges are governed by two sources of law: the jurisdiction’s rules of evidence and each profession’s code of professional ethics. These rules and codes differ by jurisdiction. For example, here’s a link to my state’s rules of evidence:
http://courts.state.ar.us/rules/index2.html#Evidence
Scroll down to rules 501-512 for privileges.
Here are our rules of professional conduct. See rule 1.6 about confidentiality.
http://courts.state.ar.us/rules/index2.html#Conduct.
Generally, in my state, a lawyer can’t reveal anything that deals with a client’s representation, but he also isn’t allowed to aid a client in committing a crime or fraud. He can only reveal confidential information in some situations. One example is when the revelation will prevent the client from committing a crime or fraud.
Some states have done away with spouse privileges, but in my state, you can prevent your spouse from testifying as to private communications, with some exceptions. Note that doctors and ministers are covered in the first link.
Every state has different standards, but I think what I said appears to be generally accurate. Pretty sure that there is no standard for confidentality in PHD’s, but I would imagine the same standard for MD’s would apply to their staff, such as nurses.
Sorry for the Wiki cites, but I don’t really feel like digging through my crim law book on a Friday night.
Also, from our rules of evidence (linked above), “A ‘physician’ is a person authorized to practice medicine in any state or nation, or reasonably believed by the patient so to be.” That probably includes your RN, but I think you’d have a hard time arguing that you reasonably believed a non-medical PhD to be authorized to pracitce medicine, in most cases.
They can’t force your wife to reveal what she knows, but I do believe that she can voluntarily give up that information, right?
Yeah. I think that’s the way it works. I’ll try to find a better cite than the one I gave.
Not in my state, in most cases (in criminal proceedings).
“An accused in a criminal proceeding has a privilege to prevent his spouse from testifying as to any confidential communication between the accused and the spouse.”
Also, a landmark case in the psychotherapist privilege is Tarasoff v. Regents of U.C., a 1976 California case:
“When a therapist determines, or pursuant to the standards of his profession should determine, that his patient presents a serious danger of violence to another, he incurs an obligation to use reasonable care to protect the intended victim against such danger. The discharge of this duty may require the therapist to take one or more of various steps. Thus, it may call for him to warn the intended victim, to notify the police, or to take whatever steps are reasonably necessary under the circumstances.”
Here
“The marital communications privilege is available in most jurisdictions. Most jurisdictions offering it allow a witness spouse to choose whether to testify; some automatically disqualify evidence from a spouse.”
Seems that some courts will just not accept any testimony at all from a spouse. I can’t imagine that would go over well in domestic abuse cases.
I think in that case, it would be waived, since you’d have one spouse charging the other with a crime or whatever. Probably the same with divorce cases, or child abuse.
Or I can try reading my cites completely…
“The privilege also cannot be claimed in certain situations, such as where one spouse is subject to prosecution for crimes committed against the other or against the children of the couple.”
Spousal privilege is complicated, and there is some variation between states. Part of the complication comes from the fact that it is really two privileges.
In many states, the spouse who is on trial can prevent the other spouse from even taking the stand. This is called a testimonial privilege.
For example, a Michigan statute:
Notice that the statute takes care of a key issue. The non-testifying spouse has the power to waive the privilige or assert it. Not every state does it that way.
There is also an evidentiary privilege, as illustrated by the rest of the statute:
States vary in the ways that they treat the testimonial privilege, too.
Note the exception in my state:
“(d) Exceptions. There is no privilege under this rule in a proceeding in which one [1] spouse is charged with a crime against the person or property of (1) the other, (2) a child of either, (3) a person residing in the household of either, or (4) a third person committed in the course of committing a crime against any of them.”
So a wife can testify against a husband in a domestic abuse case.
Also, the OP was referring to whether the various people could testify as to a confidential conversation in a murder case. The spouse or doctor or minister could tell the police (depending on their professional code of ethics), but would be barred from testimony (in my jurisdiction).
Now that I read it, this is not entirely accurate. The confidential statement has to be related to medical treatment to be protected. From my state’s rules of evidence:
“A patient has a privilege to refuse to disclose and to prevent any other person from disclosing his medical records or confidential communications made for the purpose of diagnosis or treatment of his physical, mental or emotional condition, including alcohol or drug addiction, among himself, physician or psychotherapist, and persons who are participating in the diagnosis or treatment under the direction of the physician or psychotherapist, including members of the patient’s family.”
So if you tell your doctor, “I killed a guy,” he can testify about it. But if you tell him, “Man, my arm hurts because I was stabbing this guy,” you might have an argument against him testifying.
A classic case of “stabber’s elbow.” Incidentally, there is no physician-patient privilege at common law, and not all states have encated it by statute. Some of those that have limit it a great deal as well. Federal courts don’t recognize it, unless they’re sitting in diversity and appling state law.
The spousal privileges vary from state to state, of cuss. Here in Texas we also have two separate ones, “spousal immunity” and “confidential communications during marriage.” Classic example (which I’ve used here before, so if you notice I’m repeating/plagarizing myself, sue me), a husband come home covered in blood a gruesome murder occurs, a murder for which he is later indicted. The wife sees him all bloody. The prosecutor wants to put her on the stand to testify about what she saw. Under the spousal immunity privilege, she cannot be forced to testify if she doesn’t want to. However, the testifying spouse is the holder of the privilege, not the defendant spouse. She may testify if she wants to.
Let’s say that on that night she asked about the blood, and hubbie responds “well, don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been stabbing this guy. Could you fetch my liniment for my stabber’s elbow?” This would be protected by the confidential communications privilege, which acts a lot like the attorney-client privilege. Both spouses hold this privilege, not just the testifying spouse. Even if they are later divorced, she cannot testify as to what she was told in confidence, although she can testify about the bloodstains she saw.
There are exceptions, as noted by southfarthing and DxZero: if the case is one that involves a crime that is “destructive of the family unit”, like spousal abuse or child abuse, the privilege doesn’t apply. Since the rationale of the privileges is preservation of the marriage/family unit, applying the privileges in those cases would defeat their purposes.
Argh. I hate correcting myself, but that should read “Classic example (which I’ve used here before, so if you notice I’m repeating/plagarizing myself, sue me), a husband come home covered in blood on the same night that a gruesome murder occurs, a murder for which he is later indicted.”
Just to be clear: If I go to my doctor because of my stabber’s elbow and an RN at the office asks me why I’m there to see the doctor and I explain it to her, can she be compelled to testify in a court of law?
I would imagine that doctor-patient privilege extends to his staff. It wouldn’t make much sense for the police not to be able to compel testimony from the doctor, but be able to get it out of the nurse that took all of your info when you first showed up.
Admittance records are, however, admissable, IIRC.
“…nurses or medical assistants in the room are “extensions” of the doctor for purposes of confidentiality and are covered by the privilege.”