I mean I can tell my lawyer if I committed a crime and it’s attorney client privilege. I can tell my wife or husband and we are protected not to squeal on each other. Same thing about telling a priest it is privileged information. How come a nurse or doctor is required to report it. I mean non of the above are life and death but a confession from a patient should be privileged in my opinion why is it not? Like if a person says they use meth or whatever, we really don’t report it. But if he get’s in a wreck and only causes himself or herself injury why are we to report it to the police does not HIPPA cover this?
A lawyer is considered an extension of your (legal) self. The reason is that if your lawyer can be compelled to talk about your private communications, then a client won’t actually get a fair trial, as they needed that lawyer aware of everything to defend them properly, but if prosecution could just call your lawyer to the stand and go “did they do it?”, no one would tell lawyers anything incriminating.
Your spouse is also considered to be part of you, legally. You have a right to confide in them, they are part of your life.
Same for a priest, many religions require confessions and have religious consequences for not confessing or a priest telling what they heard. The right for them protects them from being forced to break religious rules, although notably this one doesn’t exist everywhere.
Nurses and doctors are covered in the same way, actually. Revealing your medical information improperly is a HIPAA violation.
Aside from spousal privilege, all of these relate to their job. Your lawyer defends you, your priest hears your confessions, your doctors and nurses treat you. If you tell your priest about your heart condition and your lawyer about your blaspheming against god and your doctor about that time you murdered a man back in '03, then no privilege protects you at all.
That last paragraph, especially, explains it so well. It’s very important to know to whom, when, where, why, how, and to what extent one should talk about a particular subject.
That seems like a lot of work. I’ll just continue not telling anybody anything.
That’s probably better than the opposite extreme, although I think most of us learn to filter intuitively for appropriateness over time. Having said that, I feel like telling medics your symptoms and your attorney anything they ask generally covers most of the bases.
What if I told the man I murdered in '03 that I blasphemed my wife to my lawyer, and that’s why I murdered him, to keep him from telling my priest?
It depends on whether the man you murdered in '03 was a doctor
He was my therapist.
The sequel to The Sixth Sense that nobody asked for.
In that case, you should ask Tarantino for points on the back end.
I would have guessed Shyamalan, but a Tarantino interpretation of The Sixth Sense would be interesting.
Then you’ve killed the man you told and the court will have a terribly difficult time producing him, but if they manage it, you’ll have to marry him to apply any kind of privilege.
Is that you, Tim Burton?