NCJ Number
113732
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Law Volume: 13 Issue: 1 Dated: (1987) Pages: 161-179
Date Published
1987
Length
19 pages
Annotation
In the fall of 1985, the United States Department of Justice issued guidelines on the forfeiture of assets transferred to attorneys as legal fees, thus raising certain constitutional and economic issues in its attempt to obtain convictions under the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970.
Abstract
The guidelines are an attempt to prevent organized crime suspects from transferring assets obtained by their criminal activity to lawyers as payment for legal services. If an attorney has reasonable grounds to have actual knowledge that attorney's fees paid were derived from criminal misconduct, he or she must refuse to accept the fees from the client. The guidelines empower the Justice Department to seize fees paid from assets derived from criminal misconduct if the attorney knows they are such and accepts them anyway as payment. The article questions the wisdom of using forfeiture provisions in general and this provision in particular. At present forfeiture provisions are a tool in fighting organized crime, but they could be used by an overzealous Attorney General to violate the rights of cerain disfavored citizens by depriving them of the presumption of innocence, their personal property, and their choice of counsel. It can be argued that it is better to let the guilty keep the fruits of their crime if doing so protects the personal freedoms of the innocent. 153 footnotes.