The Buried Bodies Case is the name given to a 1973–1975 New York matter in which two defense attorneys for serial killer Robert Garrow learned from their client where he had hidden the bodies of two of his victims, personally confirmed one of the locations, and then said nothing to police or to the victims’ families for months. When the silence came to light at trial, one of the lawyers was criminally charged and both faced a bar ethics investigation. The rulings and opinions that followed made the case a fixture of American legal ethics teaching and helped drive a narrow exception to the duty of confidentiality that most U.S. jurisdictions recognize today.
How the Secret Arose
Robert Garrow killed four people in upstate New York during the summer of 1973. After his arrest, his court-appointed attorneys, Frank Armani and Francis Belge, learned from him that in addition to the charged murder of camper Phil Domblewski he had killed three other people: Alicia Hauck, a 16-year-old Syracuse high school student; Susan Petz, 20; and Daniel Porter, 23.1Adirondack Life. Summer of Garrow
Acting on directions Garrow gave them, Belge went to Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse at the end of September 1973 and located Hauck’s remains. He inspected the body to verify Garrow’s account and left without notifying anyone. Hauck’s body would not be found by police until December 1, 1973, when a Syracuse University student came across it.2Clark Cunningham. Garrow Case – New York Times Report The lawyers also knew from Garrow that Susan Petz’s body had been left in a mine shaft in Mineville. They kept that information to themselves as well.3University of Illinois College of Law. People v. Belge Analysis
Armani and Belge disclosed the additional killings only in June 1974, at Garrow’s trial in Hamilton County Court in Lake Pleasant, using the confessions to support an insanity defense. The jury rejected the defense, and Garrow was convicted of Domblewski’s murder and sentenced to 25 years to life.4vLex. People v. Garrow, 51 A.D.2d 814
Why the Lawyers Stayed Silent
Armani and Belge treated everything Garrow told them, including where the bodies were, as protected by attorney-client privilege. Disclosing that information, they concluded, would violate their client’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination as well as their professional duty of confidentiality.
Armani spoke publicly about the reasoning long after the case closed. In one often-quoted statement, he described weighing his silence against the anguish of the victims’ families: “the fact that I have a dead girl … measured against the breaking heart of a parent … it’s a terrible thing to play God at that moment, but in my judgment, and I still feel that way, their suffering is not worth jeopardizing my sworn duty or my oath of office or the Constitution.”5NALA. Client Confidentiality – The Buried Bodies Case
Criminal Charges Against Belge
When the silence became public at trial, the reaction was severe. Legal commentary of the period recorded that “public indignation reached the fever pitch,” with press accounts framing the attorneys as emblematic of an “unhealthy lack of concern of most lawyers with the public interest and with simple decency.”3University of Illinois College of Law. People v. Belge Analysis Commentators called for obstruction-of-justice charges or accessory-after-the-fact prosecutions.
The Onondaga County District Attorney convened a grand jury to look at Armani and Belge. The grand jury declined to indict Armani. Belge, who had gone to the cemetery, was indicted on two counts under New York’s Public Health Law: Section 4200, failure to accord a decent burial to the dead, and Section 4143, failure to report a death occurring without medical attendance.3University of Illinois College of Law. People v. Belge Analysis
On August 1, 1975, Judge Ormand N. Gale dismissed the indictment. The court held that the location of the body was a privileged attorney-client communication and that requiring Belge to disclose it would have violated Garrow’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Judge Gale wrote that Belge had “conducted himself as an officer of the court with all the zeal at his command to protect the constitutional rights of his client,” and treated the Public Health Law provisions as “pseudo-criminal” when weighed against those protections.3University of Illinois College of Law. People v. Belge Analysis The ruling was affirmed on appeal.
The Bar’s Ethics Opinion
The New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics ran a separate inquiry into the lawyers’ conduct. In Opinion 479, issued February 28, 1978, the committee concluded that Armani and Belge would have violated their confidentiality duties had they disclosed the locations of the bodies to authorities. The privilege, the committee reasoned, attaches to all information obtained through the attorney-client relationship, so that clients feel free to disclose the facts their lawyers need to represent them.6New York State Bar Association. Opinion 479
The opinion drew one important line. Knowing where evidence is located is different from moving or handling it. The committee flagged Belge’s decision to move a body part in order to photograph the remains as creating “an appearance of impropriety” that should have been avoided, since physically manipulating evidence can look like suppression even when the underlying knowledge is privileged.6New York State Bar Association. Opinion 479
How the Case Changed the Rules
At the time Garrow confessed to his lawyers, New York’s ethics rules allowed a lawyer to break confidentiality only to prevent a future crime. Past crimes, including a past murder whose victim’s family was still searching, fell entirely inside the privilege. That framework is what forced Armani and Belge into the silence that made them notorious.
The case is widely credited as a driving force behind a narrow exception that most U.S. jurisdictions later adopted. Rule 1.6 of the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct now permits, but does not require, a lawyer to disclose confidential information to prevent “reasonably certain death or substantial bodily harm.”5NALA. Client Confidentiality – The Buried Bodies Case New York’s Rule 1.6 similarly permits disclosure in those circumstances.7New York State Bar Association. Attorney Professionalism Forum – Does Attorney-Client Privilege Survive a Client’s Death
The exception is narrower than the Garrow facts would test. It addresses future harm, not the location of victims already dead, so a lawyer facing something like what Armani and Belge faced would still be bound to silence under the modern rule. That is part of why the case remains in the ethics curriculum: it isn’t resolved by the reform it prompted.
The Human Cost
Armani carried the fallout for the rest of his career. He spoke often about the toll the case took on his health, his practice, and his personal relationships. At a 2010 panel discussion at Syracuse University’s College of Law, when Armani was 83 and retired, Alicia Hauck’s sister, Cindy Hauck Cieloch, confronted him from the audience and criticized his remarks about the personal costs he had suffered.8Syracuse.com. Memories of Killer Robert Garrow
The case is now routinely described as a “touchstone of legal ethics classes,” used to make law students sit with the collision between a client’s constitutional protections and the ordinary human duties owed to victims and their families.9Stanford Law School. Law Students Add Nuance to Wikipedia Articles About Famous Cases The dismissal in People v. Belge, Opinion 479, and the later Model Rule 1.6 exception are the doctrinal residue. The silence itself is what the case is remembered for.