What kind of “lawyer” allows his client to testify to privileged information, olddeck?
http://www.caaflog.com/2010/12/14/united-states-v-lakin-liveblogging-day-one-wrap/
United States v. Lakin liveblogging, Day One wrap
By Christopher Mathews, December 14, 2010
The prosecution has now rested and the court-martial is in recess until tomorrow. Some highlights from today:
According to LTC Lakin, his former counsel, Paul Rolf Jensen, told him that although disobeying military orders would be consistent with Lakin’s thinking, he specifically said “I can’t ethically advise you to disobey” those orders.
As a lawyer, I have often had clients waive the attorney-client privilege. If you are going to defend against a claim by saying that you were relying on the advice of counsel when you did what you did (which is evidence that you were acting in good faith and without criminal intent), you have to waive the privilege in order to disclose the advice.
It appears to be part of LTC Lakin's strategy here to rely on the advice of his former counsel in mitigation of punishment. From the blog post linked above:
"During the providence inquiry, there was significant questioning concerning the legal advice that LTC Lakin had received. Judge Lind asked LTC Lakin’s civilian counsel — Neal Puckett — whether he was comfortable with her making such inquiries. He replied that he encouraged it. He said the defense would be raising the legal advice given to LTC Lakin (probably during the sentencing case), so it would be better to address it during the providence inquiry than have to reopen the providence inquiry when the defense raised it later."
Probably the kind of lawyer who is either attempting to build a foundation of ineffective assistance of counsel for later appeal, or preparing the jury panel for some explanation at allocution that will perhaps mitigate exposure at sentencing. Without the benefit of reading the trial transcript (and without omnipotence with respect to precisely what his prior counsel said), it's tough to tell just from Judge Matthews' one or two sentence description.