Associated Press
Sunday, July 27, 2008

FRISCO -- Members of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association plan to attend an upcoming hearing to protest what they say is a highly unusual search of a defense attorney's office in connection with a murder-for-hire case in suburban Dallas.

Collin County prosecutors seeking the death penalty against a man accused of being a contract killer requested a court-ordered search of the offices of the man's lawyers, saying they believed defense attorneys were hiding incriminating evidence.

Attorneys for defendant Mark Lyle Bell and members of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association said the February search violated attorney-client privilege.

"I think it's unconscionable," David Schulman, one of Bell's attorneys, said in a story in Sunday's editions of The Dallas Morning News.

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