Legal Ethics
Contempt Charge Dropped Against Lawyer Who Refused to Testify Against Client
Posted Sep 30, 2009 5:42 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A Texas lawyer briefly jailed for contempt after he refused to testify against his client has been acquitted under an agreement approved by a judge on Tuesday.
Lubbock lawyer Ben Webb was jailed for about an hour in June after he refused to testify that his client had failed to appear for a 2008 trial, according to KCBD.com. At the time, Judge Jim Bob Darnell found Webb in contempt, saying the information fell outside the scope of attorney-client privilege, LubbockOnline reports. Later, Darnell signed an order saying he did not want the state to seek further punishment against Webb.
Prosecutors agreed to drop the charges, and a visiting judge signed an order finding Webb not guilty on Tuesday, according to the stories. "I feel two things today: pride and vindication," Webb said at a news conference on the courthouse lawn.
Several criminal defense lawyers appeared at the hearing to support Webb.
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Comments
Hunter Van Valkenburgh
Sep 30, 2009 7:24 AM CST
How can one take the judgment of a judge named Jim Bob seriously in the first place? Of course the attorney was on the ethical razor’s edge of having to provide service in his client’s best interest and serve the court, but the judge should have known that the public record was sufficient to prove the client’s non-attendance. Why place the lawyer in the ethically tenuous position if not just to mess with him?
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