Cite as: 524 U. S. 399 (1998)
OTMConnor, J., dissenting
here the Independent Counsel has simply not made a sufficient showing to overturn the common-law rule embodied in the prevailing case law. Interpreted in the light of reason and experience, that body of law requires that the attorney-client privilege prevent disclosure of the notes at issue in this case. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Justice OTMConnor, with whom Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
Although the attorney-client privilege ordinarily will survive the death of the client, I do not agree with the Court that it inevitably precludes disclosure of a deceased client's communications in criminal proceedings. In my view, a criminal defendant's right to exculpatory evidence or a compelling law enforcement need for information may, where the testimony is not available from other sources, override a client's posthumous interest in confidentiality.
We have long recognized that "[t]he fundamental basis upon which all rules of evidence must rest—if they are to rest upon reason—is their adaptation to the successful development of the truth." Funk v. United States, 290 U. S. 371, 381 (1933). In light of the heavy burden that they place on the search for truth, see United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683, 708-710 (1974), "[e]videntiary privileges in litigation are not favored, and even those rooted in the Constitution must give way in proper circumstances," Herbert v. Lando, 441 U. S. 153, 175 (1979). Consequently, we construe the scope of privileges narrowly. See Jaffee v. Redmond, 518 U. S. 1, 19 (1996) (Scalia, J., dissenting); see also University of Pennsylvania v. EEOC, 493 U. S. 182, 189 (1990). We are reluctant to recognize a privilege or read an existing one expansively unless to do so will serve a "public good transcending the normally predominant principle of utilizing all rational means for ascertaining truth." Trammel v. United
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