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American Morning

Interview with Jayne Weintraub, Defense Attorney

Aired April 10, 2002 - 07:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now with more on the government's case against Lynne Stewart is a renowned defense lawyer in her own right, from Miami, Jayne Weintraub, a criminal defense attorney and a former federal prosecutor as well -- Ms. Weintraub, good morning and welcome. Nice to have you with us.

JAYNE WEINTRAUB, CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER: Good morning, Jack.

CAFFERTY: You've read the indictment, what do you think?

WEINTRAUB: Well after reading the indictment, I'm obviously a bit troubled. But I know a lot better than to think that the indictment is evidence. It's not evidence, and we all know that. These are merely allegations that the government has set forth.

Let me say two things to start with. One, the whole issue of the erosion of the attorney-client privilege is obviously very troubling to all lawyers.

CAFFERTY: But are there -- and I don't mean to interrupt -- but are there not rules for lawyers when they're visiting with clients in jail? I mean they don't have carte blanche just because there's a lawyer-client privilege, do they?

WEINTRAUB: No they do not. And there should be rules. For example, I go in to jails and I see clients all the time.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

WEINTRAUB: And I am entrusted as an officer of the court and as a lawyer not to carry any contraband, not to, for example, be a conduit knowingly for a client to commit a crime. For example, legal mail is not supposed to be looked at. A client is supposed to be able to write a letter to me from prison, being able to have confidence that I will be able to read it without anyone else seeing it.

A client on occasion has asked me to take something and just mail it to his wife or mail it to his girlfriend. The answer, of course, is no.

CAFFERTY: Right.

WEINTRAUB: Most lawyers in this world would say no. They will not be used as pawns by anybody. CAFFERTY: Now the charge is...

WEINTRAUB: Does that mean that I would not be an aggressive zealot for my client? Of course not. I would be an aggressive zealot for my client no matter what.

CAFFERTY: Right. The charges, though, in this indictment are very specific against her, that she intentionally distracted guards, for example, while Mr. Rahman and some of his cohorts communicated in Arabic. She was speaking English -- according to the government -- and trying to distract the guards from overhearing these conversations.

The government also, you would presume in the wake of the events of 9-11, could ill afford to bring a frivolous charge against someone of her caliber. One would have to assume that they have some evidence or they wouldn't come forth with this. This will be a high profile case and could well be a test case for the changes in the rules governing some of these detainees from Afghanistan.

WEINTRAUB: Well that's true, Jack, but there are two issues there. One is it appears as if this was conducted with a court order, which is not what the Ashcroft rules are. The Ashcroft new rules are no court order, unilateral decisions by prosecutors to intrude on the attorney-client privilege. That's what's so scary to me...

CAFFERTY: Right.

WEINTRAUB: ... is that a prosecutor, without going to a judge or without having evidence, is just going to say, "Hey, listen to them. I want to know what's going on." That's a whole other issue.

What happened here, according to the indictment and from what I can see, is that there was a court order. In other words, prosecutors had independence evidence first that a crime was being committed by this lawyer. If that's true, then she needs to be held accountable like any other person charged or found guilty of a crime.

CAFFERTY: All right. I got 20 seconds. But just to put my mind and everybody else's mind at ease watching this, if I'm arrested and I'm having conversations with my lawyer, those conversations are protected. This is a different situation, right?

WEINTRAUB: This is a different situation. And that is a point to make, that clients should maintain their confidences in their lawyers and that lawyers will do everything they can to make sure that confidence stays in tact.

CAFFERTY: All right. Ms. Weintraub, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for being with us this morning.

WEINTRAUB: Thank you.

CAFFERTY: Jayne Weintraub, joining us from Miami. A renowned criminal defense lawyer. It will be an interesting case to follow, and we will -- Paula. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com