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 Agency clears its counsel for testimony ELIZABETH MCFARLAND ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE The top lawyer for the department that supervises children in state custody has been cleared to testify before legislators. Jonann Coniglio, chief counsel for the state Department of Human Services, said last month that attorney-client privilege would prevent her from answering some questions about state treatment of juvenile delinquents. Coniglio had asked that her name be removed from the list of witnesses called to testify before state House and Senate interim committees looking into who knew what about alleged abuses and when he knew it. "There is an ethical rule that prohibits me from testifying against my client. My client is the Department of Human Services and all of its past and present employees. It's not my privilege to waive," Coniglio told lawmakers in July. Department Director Richard Weiss on Thursday gave his approval for Coniglio to testify. "I hereby release Ms. Coniglio from her ethical obligation to assert the attorney-client privilege, and consent to her testifying before your committee on matters concerning the Division of Youth Services," Weiss wrote in a letter to the committees' chairmen. Weiss' letter said he had conferred at length with Gov. Mike Huckabee on the subject and Huckabee concurred in the decision to waive the privilege. Breck Hopkins, the department's deputy counsel, had said previously that Coniglio might have to obtain a waiver from each employee she testified about. In a memorandum Thursday to Coniglio, department attorney Frank GoBell said he believed the department director has the authority to waive the department's attorney-client privilege. He said the client is the organization, not the constituents or employees. "The employee has no right to invoke the privilege; the organization does," GoBell wrote. The Senate Interim Committee on Children and Youth and the House Interim Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs Committee will meet next on Aug. 31. A committee staff member said legislators have asked for four people to head the list of witnesses: former department Director Lee Frazier; Ruth Whitney, the department's director of county operations and a former head of the youth services section; Lloyd Warford, an investigator in the chief counsel's office; and Larance Johnson, former acting director of the Youth Services Division. Other meetings have been scheduled for Sept. 14, Sept. 21 and Sept. 28. Lawmakers called for the hearings after reports of alleged abuses at the division's Observation and Assessment Center in North Little Rock and at some of the serious offender wilderness camps. In June, Huckabee said he would close the center, a former city jail where sewage would back up into cells and youths were forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor because of overcrowding. The center closed Wednesday, when the last of the youths were transferred to the Alexander Youth Services Center at Bryant. This article was published on Friday, August 14, 1998 Copyright, permissions and privacy policy Copyright © 2008, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. |
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