In a criminal trial, the Sixth Amendment’s Compulsory Process Clause protects a defendant’s right to gather evidence in his favor. Similarly, the Confrontation Clause guards a defendant’s right to effectively cross-examine those who bear witness against him. At times, however, these rights collide with a witness’s assertion of the attorney-client privilege. The Supreme Court declined to decide how to handle such a collision inSwidler & Berlin v. United States. And the courts that have answered this question have fractured. Some suggest the attorney-client privilege yields to a defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights. Some hold that the attorney-client privilege is always impenetrable. Finally, others conduct fact-specific balancing tests to determine whether the information at issue is sufficiently probative to justify piercing the privilege. This Note contends that each of these approaches misses the mark. It first argues that the categorical approaches to this conflict ignore the Supreme Court’s direction to balance a defendant’s Sixth Amendment interests against an evidentiary rule’s purpose when the two collide. It then contends that fact-specific balancing tests disregard a client’s need for certainty regarding the attorney-client privilege’s scope.

中文翻译：

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两种权利冲突：确定律师-委托人的特权何时应让渡给被告的强制程序或对抗权

在刑事审判中，第六修正案的强制程序条款保护被告收集对他有利的证据的权利。同样，对抗条款保护被告有效盘问对他不利的证人的权利。然而，有时这些权利会与证人对律师-委托人特权的主张相冲突。最高法院拒绝决定如何处理 Swidler & Berlin 诉美国案中的此类冲突。已经回答了这个问题的法院已经分裂了。一些人建议律师-客户特权屈服于被告的第六修正案权利。一些人认为，律师-客户特权始终是不可逾越的。最后，其他人进行特定于事实的平衡测试，以确定有争议的信息是否有足够的证明来证明剥夺特权是正当的。本说明认为这些方法中的每一种都没有达到目标。它首先辩称，这种冲突的分类方法忽略了最高法院在两者发生冲突时平衡被告的第六修正案利益与证据规则目的的方向。然后，它争辩说，特定于事实的平衡测试忽略了委托人对律师-委托人特权范围的确定性需求。