We generally don't comment on the "celebrity" cases that are in the news only because of the personalities involved. Once in a while, though, a legal or policy issue worth serious discussion actually arises out of the tabloid fodder.
Linda Deutsch of AP has this story on a development in the Phil Spector murder case in LA. A former Spector defense attorney, Sara Caplan, has been held in contempt for refusing to answer questions about a piece of physical evidence from the scene that she pointed out to forensic expert Henry Lee, who then removed it. The prosecution, naturally, would like to have the evidence if possible, and if not to at least have the testimony of people who observed it. Ms. Caplan refused.
The article says Ms. Caplan cited "attorney-client privilege and constitutional reasons...." Trying to judge a legal argument from such a sketchy description is dicey, but it's hard to see any valid basis for refusal here. Even at its pro-defendant peak, the California Supreme Court held in People v. Meredith, 29 Cal.3d 682, 631 P.2d 46 (1981) that a defense investigator who had retrieved the victim's wallet not only had to turn it over but also had to testify where he found it. This was so even though the location had been revealed by the defendant himself, making that case closer than the issue in the Spector case. Orders to turn over tangible objects sometimes raise self-incrimination issues when they are directed to the defendant and the act of production constitutes an implicit statement, see, e.g., United States v. Hubbell, 530 U.S. 27, 36 (2000), but that doesn't seem to be the issue here.
However, Ms. Caplan is an experienced criminal defense lawyer and presumably wouldn't risk jail unless there were an argument of substance there. Hopefully we will get some more info as to what the argument against disclosure really is in the near future.
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