Judge Assails Thornburgh Policy on Prosecutor-Defendant Contacts

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Friday denounced as unethical and illegal Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh’s policy of allowing private talks between federal prosecutors and defendants, and took the rare step of ordering dismissal of a criminal charge.

Thornburgh’s two-year-old policy of permitting discussions without a defense lawyer present “promises to wreak havoc in federal trial courts everywhere” and “represents a serious threat to the integrity of criminal justice proceedings,” said U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel.

In her ruling, apparently the first of its kind in the nation, Patel said Thornburgh’s policy violated state and federal court rules requiring a lawyer to get the opposing lawyer’s permission before communicating with that lawyer’s client.

In the case before her, a prosecutor’s direct contacts with drug defendant Jose Orlando Lopez in an attempt to arrange a guilty plea effectively deprived Lopez of the lawyer of his choice, the judge said.

She said it did not matter that Lopez had asked for the discussions or that a federal magistrate had approved them. The magistrate appears to have been misinformed by the prosecutor that Lopez had a conflict with his lawyer and would be in danger if the lawyer learned he was cooperating with the government, Patel said.