Gregory Chandler - Delay in Asserting Attorney-Client Privilege

I often write about the attorney-client privilege. In United States v. Ary, 518 F. 3d 775 (10th Cir. 2008), the appellate court affirmed convictions for fraud and stolen property offenses arising from transactions involving space artifacts, the Court found no error in a ruling that the defendant waived the attorney-client privilege and work product protection as to documents seized in a government search when he waited six weeks to assert protection after a Rule 16 discovery meeting. In a footnote, the Court suggested that is was "possible" that the defendant waived the privilege at the Rule 16 meeting itself, when he failed to raise any privilege claim despite the fact that the government provided an inventory of items seized in the search, which included the "black box" containing the allegedly privileged material.

GREGORY CHANDLER, Attorney at Law