Louisiana Judge Rules That Priests Don’t Have to Report Abuse if They Hear It During Confession

[Jim Lane]

64. No, that's one of the exceptions.

Suppose I tell my client that it looks bad for us because the State found a witness who saw my client commit the murder. The client says to me, "Well, tonight I have to go to my kid's school play, but tomorrow night I'll kill that witness, so don't worry about the trial." The interest in preventing a future crime overrides the privilege. As soon as he leaves my office, I call the cops.

Suppose, instead, that the client merely nods glumly at the news, then a couple days later the witness turns up dead, and the client thereafter tells me, "I killed him, that's two murders this month, my personal record" -- the privilege still applies and I can't disclose these conversations.

One can imagine some in-between scenarios. The client doesn't expressly state that he'll kill the dangerous witness, but he glowers, pounds his fist into his palm, and says, "This is bad. Very bad." Or he says "I'll tell Johnny to do something about this" and I know Johnny is his hit man. At what point does inchoate discontent become sufficiently specific to trigger the exception? In real life I don't do criminal law so I generally avoid such harrowing decisions.