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  "id": "RS22588",
  "type": "CRS Report",
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      "id": 356934,
      "date": "2010-03-09",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-06T22:20:11.795849",
      "title": "Prosecutorial Discretion in the Context of Corporate Attorney-Client Relations: A Sketch",
      "summary": "The Justice Department enjoys prosecutorial discretion to bring criminal charges against a corporation, its culpable officers or employees, or both. For a corporation, indictment alone can be catastrophic, if not fatal, in some instances. The Thompson Memorandum, since replaced with guidelines in the U. S. Attorneys Manual, described the policy factors to be considered in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Two of the factors explicitly mentioned were whether a corporation had waived its privileges and whether it had cut off the payment of attorneys\u2019 fees for its officers and employees.\nJustice Department policies and practices under the Thompson Memorandum led to constitutional challenges based on the Fifth Amendment\u2019s self-incrimination clause, the Amendment\u2019s due process clause, and the Sixth Amendment\u2019s right to counsel clause. Due process and right to counsel concerns were enough for a federal district court in New York to throw out the indictments of thirteen former partners and employees of an accounting firm, charged with creating and marketing fraudulent tax shelters, United States v. Stein. The Second Circuit affirmed on right to counsel grounds and consequently found it necessary to address the merits of the due process argument.\nThe House addressed the conflict in attorney-client protective legislation which it passed in the 110th Congress. Soon thereafter, the Department of Justice announced a revised policy concerning the circumstances under which a corporation\u2019s failure to waive its attorney-client privilege might influence the decision to prosecute it. The 110th Congress, which had previously amended the Federal Rules of Evidence relating to the inadvertent waiver of the attorney-client privilege, adjourned without taking further action on the House-passed legislation. Similar proposals, however, have been introduced in 111th Congress, H.R. 4326 (Representative Scott); S. 445 (Senator Specter). This report provides a brief discussion of the legislation, the legal background, and a chronology of related issues and events; it is an abbreviated version of CRS Report RL33842, The McNulty Memorandum: Attorneys\u2019 Fees and Waiver of Corporate Attorney-Client and Work Product Protection, by Charles Doyle, without the footnotes or citations to authority found in the longer report.",
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    {
      "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
      "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc818050/",
      "id": "RS22588_2008Oct14",
      "date": "2008-10-14",
      "retrieved": "2016-03-19T13:57:26",
      "title": "The McNulty Memorandum In Short: Attorneys\u2019 Fees and Waiver of Corporate Attorney-Client and Work Product Protection",
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      "topics": []
    },
    {
      "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
      "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc808260/",
      "id": "RS22588_2007Jan30",
      "date": "2007-01-30",
      "retrieved": "2016-03-19T13:57:26",
      "title": "The Thompson Memorandum In Short: Attorneys\u2019 Fees and Waiver of Corporate Attorney-Client and Work Product Protection",
      "summary": null,
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORT",
      "active": false,
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}