David Conn and Carol Najera v. Paul L. Gabbert (526 U.S. 286)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 5, 1999 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 526 U.S. 286 · 119 S. Ct. 1292
- Decided
- April 5, 1999
- Term
- October Term 1998
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. We granted certiorari in this case, 525 U. S. 809 (1998), to decide whether a prosecutor violates an attorney’s Fourteenth Amendment right to practice his profession when the prosecutor causes the attorney to be searched at the same time his client is testifying before a grand jury. We eon-elude that such conduct by a prosecutor does not violate an attorney’s Fourteenth Amendment right to practice his profession. This case arises out of the the “Menendez Brothers,” Lyle and Erik Menendez, for the murder of their parents. Petitioners David Corn and Carol Najera are Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorneys, and respondent Paul Gabbert is a criminal defense attorney. In early 1994, after the first Menendez trial ended in a hung jury, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office assigned Conn and Najera to prosecute the case on retrial. Conn and Najera learned that Lyle Menendez had written a letter to Traci Baker, his former girlfriend, in which he may have instructed her to testify falsely at trial. Gabbert represented Baker, who had testified as a defense witness in the first trial. Conn obtained and served Baker with a subpoena directing her to testify before the Los Angeles County grand jury and also directing her to produce at that time any correspondence that she had received from Lyle Menendez, After…
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