## Facts

- Robert F. Garrow, Jr. was charged with murder in New York, and Francis R. Belge, Esq. was appointed as his defense counsel; the defense pursued an insanity theory.
- In confidential attorney-client communications, Garrow admitted committing additional murders and described the locations of undiscovered bodies, including Alicia Hauck’s body in Onondaga County.
- Belge investigated and located Hauck’s body in a cemetery, inspected it to confirm it matched the client’s description, and did not notify law enforcement, the medical examiner, or the victim’s family.
- The additional killings later became public during Garrow’s trial when the defense referenced them to support the insanity defense.
- A grand jury investigation followed; it returned an indictment against Belge under New York Public Health Law §§ 4200(1) (decent burial) and 4143 (reporting an unattended death).

## Issues

1. Whether attorney-client privilege and a defense lawyer’s duty of confidentiality bar criminal prosecution for failing to report a death and ensure burial when the only source of the information is a client’s confidential confession.
2. Whether applying reporting and burial statutes to punish defense counsel’s nondisclosure in a pending murder defense impermissibly burdens the client’s rights to counsel and against self-incrimination.

## Decision

- The court granted Belge’s pretrial motion and dismissed the indictment.
- It held that, on these facts, imposing criminal liability would effectively penalize counsel for maintaining privileged client communications.
- The court treated the privilege, as applied in criminal defense, as closely tied to the client’s constitutional rights and to effective assistance of counsel.
- The court declined to broaden the case beyond nondisclosure based on privileged information, noting the charges were limited to the Public Health Law counts rather than obstruction-type offenses.

## Legal Principles

- Attorney-client privilege and confidentiality protect communications necessary for effective criminal representation and are not lightly displaced by generally applicable statutes.
- When the state seeks to predicate criminal liability on a defense lawyer’s silence, and the silence is compelled by privileged communications, prosecution may be barred to avoid indirect compulsion of incriminating disclosures through counsel.
- Statutory duties serving public policy objectives (such as reporting deaths and ensuring burial) may yield where their enforcement would materially impair the client’s right to counsel and privilege against self-incrimination in an active criminal matter.
- The ruling is limited to nondisclosure rooted in privileged communications and does not decide the legality of affirmative acts intended to obstruct an investigation.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed the indictment because the Public Health Law reporting and burial provisions could not be applied to punish court-appointed defense counsel for maintaining client confidences learned solely through privileged communications, given the resulting harm to the constitutional structure of criminal defense representation.


People v. Belge, 83 Misc. 2d 186, 372 N.Y.S.2d 798 (Onondaga Cty. Ct. 1975)