Legal Ethics Nightmare Comes True--Sort Of

I'm assuming that other folks saw this article in the Saturday New York Times: Lawyer Reveals Secret, Toppling Death Sentence. It's about a lawyer who knew about alleged prosecutorial misconduct but kept it confidential until he was advised that he could speak up about it at last.

Adam Liptak's lead sentence of the article matches everyone's classic ethics hypo about confidentiality:

For 10 years, Leslie P. Smith, a Virginia lawyer, reluctantly kept a secret because the authorities on legal ethics told him he had no choice, even though his information could save the life of a man on death row, one whose case had led to a landmark Supreme Court decision.