Flanagan et al. v. United States

Supreme Court of United States
465 U.S. 259 (1984)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

A district court's pretrial order disqualifying defense counsel in a criminal prosecution is not a 'final decision' under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and is therefore not subject to immediate appeal under the collateral order doctrine.

Facts:

Four Philadelphia police officers, including Flanagan, formed a 'grandpop' decoy squad.
A federal grand jury indicted all four officers for conspiring to deprive citizens of their civil rights and for committing substantive civil rights offenses.
Prior to the indictment, all four officers jointly retained the law firm of Sprague and Rubenstone to represent them.
The officers decided to continue with this joint representation after the indictment was issued, even though the allegations against each officer varied.

Procedural Posture:

The United States Government indicted petitioners in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Three of the petitioners moved to sever their case from petitioner Flanagan's.
The Government moved to disqualify the petitioners' jointly retained law firm due to a potential conflict of interest.
The District Court granted the Government's motion and disqualified the law firm.
Petitioners appealed the disqualification order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
The Court of Appeals, acting as the intermediate appellate court, affirmed the District Court's disqualification order.
Petitioners sought, and the U.S. Supreme Court granted, a writ of certiorari to review the appellate court's decision.

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Issue:

Does a district court's pretrial order disqualifying defense counsel in a criminal prosecution constitute a 'final decision' that is immediately appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 pursuant to the collateral order doctrine?

Opinions:

Majority - Justice O'Connor

No, a pretrial order disqualifying defense counsel in a criminal prosecution is not an immediately appealable final decision. The final judgment rule, which prohibits piecemeal appeals, is applied with utmost strictness in criminal cases to ensure the efficient administration of justice and speedy trials. To be immediately appealable under the collateral order exception, an order must conclusively determine the issue, resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits, and be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. A disqualification order fails to meet these conditions because the asserted right to counsel of choice is not a right to avoid trial altogether, but rather a right not to be convicted unfairly. This right can be effectively vindicated after a final judgment through an appeal; if the disqualification was erroneous, an appellate court can reverse the conviction and order a new trial. Therefore, because the right is not irretrievably lost by waiting, the order is not 'effectively unreviewable' post-judgment and does not qualify for an immediate interlocutory appeal.

Analysis:

This decision significantly reinforces the strong policy against interlocutory appeals in federal criminal cases, emphasizing the societal and defendant's interest in a speedy trial. By holding that disqualification of counsel is not immediately appealable, the Court narrowly construes the collateral order doctrine in the criminal context. The ruling distinguishes the right to counsel of choice from rights that provide immunity from trial itself, such as the right against double jeopardy, which are immediately appealable. This precedent effectively prevents defendants from using appeals of disqualification orders as a tool to delay criminal proceedings, prioritizing judicial efficiency over the immediate review of certain pretrial rulings.

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