## Facts

- Herbert D. Edney abducted eight-year-old Lisa Washington from a street and forced her into a taxicab.
- Edney later called the child’s aunt and threatened to rape and kill Lisa unless her mother came to the phone.
- A barmaid saw Edney with a young girl at a lounge; he went toward the rear with the girl and returned alone shortly thereafter.
- Police found Lisa’s body behind the lounge; she had been stabbed multiple times.
- After arrest and warnings, Edney made statements suggesting he had been hearing voices and might have killed Lisa.
- Edney asserted an insanity defense and presented psychiatric testimony that he lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct.
- Before trial, at defense counsel’s request, psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Schwartz examined Edney to assist counsel in evaluating the insanity defense.
- At trial, the prosecution called Dr. Schwartz in rebuttal; he opined Edney was not legally insane at the time of the crime.
- Defense counsel objected that physician–patient privilege and attorney–client/work-product protections barred Dr. Schwartz’s testimony.
- The jury convicted Edney of first-degree manslaughter and first- and second-degree kidnapping; the intermediate appellate court affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the physician–patient privilege barred the prosecution from calling a psychiatrist who examined the defendant at defense counsel’s request to rebut an insanity defense.
2. Whether the attorney–client privilege or attorney work-product protection prohibited the prosecution from eliciting the defense-retained psychiatrist’s opinions and observations in rebuttal.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the conviction.
- By asserting an insanity defense and introducing psychiatric evidence, Edney waived the physician–patient privilege as to communications and examinations relevant to his mental condition, including Dr. Schwartz’s evaluation.
- The attorney–client privilege did not bar Dr. Schwartz’s testimony because the privilege protects confidential client–attorney communications, not an expert’s independent professional opinion offered on the mental-condition issue the defense placed in dispute.
- The work-product doctrine did not prevent admission of the psychiatrist’s professional findings and opinion; it protects counsel’s mental impressions and strategy, not independently relevant expert conclusions used to litigate the merits of the insanity claim.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant who affirmatively places mental condition in issue by pleading insanity and presenting psychiatric testimony waives the physician–patient privilege for relevant psychiatric communications and examinations.
- Privilege rules may not be used to selectively disclose favorable psychiatric evidence while excluding unfavorable psychiatric evidence on the same mental-condition issue.
- Attorney–client privilege generally covers confidential communications between client and counsel made to obtain legal advice; it does not automatically extend to cloak a consulted expert’s independent opinion from disclosure once the defendant injects mental condition as a litigated issue.
- Attorney work-product protection shields counsel’s own mental impressions and legal strategy, not an expert’s underlying observations and opinions that bear directly on a defense the defendant elected to present.

## Conclusion

The court held that a defendant who raises insanity and offers psychiatric proof waives physician–patient privilege on the mental-condition issue and cannot invoke attorney–client or work-product protections to block the prosecution from calling a defense-retained psychiatrist to rebut the insanity defense.


People v. Edney, 39 N.Y.2d 620, 385 N.Y.S.2d 23, 350 N.E.2d 400 (N.Y. 1976)