Professor Imwinkelried Releases Fourth Edition of of New Wigmore Treatise

Professor Ed Imwinkelried recently released the fourth edition of his two-volume treatise, The New Wigmore: Evidentiary Privileges. The fourth edition comments on several significant developments since the third, 2016 edition. The new edition:

• Distinguishes presidential privilege issues from the procedural immunity questions posed by the Supreme Court's 2020 decisions in Trump v. Vance and Trump v. Mazars;
• Traces the history of the related question of whether, in its investigations, Congress is obliged to respect statutory and common-law privileges such as attorney-client;
• Analyzes the controversy over the government's use of "taint teams" composed of prosecutors to screen documents seized from attorneys to determine whether the documents are unprivileged and thus may be disclosed to the other government attorneys assigned to the prosecution of a particular defendant. The use of such teams has been a widespread practice for years, but several decisions within the past three years severely restrict the practice;
• Expands the coverage of the deliberative process privilege shielding documents reflecting internal government deliberations over policy matters. Although the media rarely focus on that privilege, it is now the privilege that the federal government invokes most frequently to block discovery and Freedom of Information Act requests.

 Professor Imwinkelried is a world-renowned evidence expert who has published extensively in the field.