People often look at attorney-client privilege in the criminal arena and presume that, because it could allow a guilty criminal to go free, then it doesn't make any sense. Honestly, however, that's a very small percentage of situations wherein the privilege is ever even used. First, over 90% of criminal matters are settled with a plea bargain -- so there's only 10% of any criminal matter in which the privilege could even affect the outcome. Of that 10%, most attorneys who defend criminals don't want to know whether their client is guilty or innocent, they just want the defendant to tell them their story as they see it happened. On the very rare occurrence when an admission happens, the lawyers hands become tied in several important ways -- not the least of which (at least in WA state) is that they cannot suborn perjury and if they know their client has lied on the stand, they must request that the court relieve them of continuing to represent the client.
