Privileged conversations?

Now what?  What does privileged conversations have to do with our tales of mortgage fraud?  For those of you here to find dirt on your friends or former colleagues that were charged in one of the cases we've talked about or those of you who think your about to get charged for something we've written about, hold your horses, the subject of today's post is far more important.

So what types of communications are privileged?  We've all heard about Clergy Privilege, which according to Wikipedia is...

"...is an application of the principle of privileged communication that protects the contents of communications between a member of the clergy and a penitent, who shares information in confidence."

You know how that goes, say you go over to your priest, mullah, rabbi or whatever and you confess that you like to stick foreign objects up your keister while cross dressing.   Now, that's not exactly illegal behavior, but wouldn't you hate if the priest you confessed that behavior to told everyone about your fetish?  Even worse, what would you think if someone had the confessional bugged and was recording your confession in order to use it against you later?  Scary thought isn't it?

What about other types of privileged communications?  We've all watched enough TV lawyer shows to have heard about Attorney Client Privilege right?  Once again from Wiki...

...a legal concept that protects certain communications between a client and his or her attorney and keeps those communications confidential. The attorney-client privilege is one of the oldest recognized privileges for confidential communications.^[1] The United States Supreme Court has stated that by assuring confidentiality the privilege encourages clients to make “full and frank” disclosures to their attorneys, who are then better able to provide candid advice and effective representation.

Now, can you imagine the kinds of things someone who's charged with a crime must tell their attorney?  God forbid someone was listening in on those conversations!  Can you imagine if say the police or a prosecutor was listening in on conversations between an attorney and their client especially if the attorney was in no way shape or form involved in the crime that their client was charged with?  The very thought of such a situation should send chills down your spine.  That could never happen though right?  NAH! 

But what if it did happen?  Let's see if one of the attorneys that read our blog would care to comment about just such a hypothetical situation.