A parent’s worse nightmare. Your child comes home, all disheveled, and tell you he thinks he is in trouble. He had been at a party and may have drunk too much. On the way home, he believes he may have run someone over. He gives you all the details of what happened. He is shortly arrested and under the advise of the attorney you immediately retained for him, he refuses to speak to the police. The District Attorney figures that you must have spoken to your child about the crime and subpoenas you to testify as to what he told you before a Grand Jury. Can you be forced to reveal your child’s confidences?
The answer, at least in New York, is probably no. There is no statutory parent-child privilege, like that of attorney-client or priest-penitent privilege in New York or New Jersey. However, there is case law in New York that has arguably created such a privilege. In a case called Application of A & M, the N.Y. 4th Department Appellate Division ruled in 1978 that
