"Married couples can't be compelled to testify against one another ... so there's that." — Skyler White (Breaking Bad: "Abiquiu")

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The testimonial privilege afforded to husbands and wives may be best known as an escape clause for TV couples in desperate legal binds. The common law, whose roots go back to medieval times, isn't just a trope but was first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court nearly 175 years ago.

In real life, courts have wrestled with the limits of the marital privilege which bars courts from forcing couples to divulge their private communications without their consent. A salacious murder case now before Connecticut's high court asks whether a state law extends the doctrine to couples whose unions are anything but holy.

The 46-year-old defendant, Sheila Davalloo, whose lawyer couldn't be reached for comment, was convicted of stabbing to death a female co-worker in connection with a love triangle involving a man who worked with the two of them. According to the Connecticut Supreme Court:

The defendant did not tell her husband of the tripartite affair, but she frequently told him stories of her friend and confidant "Melissa" and of the intimate details of Melissa’s workplace love triangle with "Jack" and "Anna Lisa.... After Raymundo’s [the female co-worker] murder, the defendant told her husband that Jack and Anna Lisa had broken up and that Melissa and Jack were together exclusively....

The defendant was convicted of murder in connection with Raymundo’s death and she appealed, claiming that the trial court improperly allowed her husband to testify at trial as to incriminating statements she made to him because those communications were protected by the marital communications privilege.

The wrinkle in the law is a state statute that defines a “confidential communication” between spouses as one made during the marriage “that is intended to be confidential and is induced by the affection, confidence, loyalty and integrity of the marital relationship." (Italics added.)

An appellate court ruled that the trial court correctly decided that the privilege didn't apply to the defendant, concluding that her alleged communications couldn't be construed as “induced by affection.”

Ms. Davalloo argues that the lower courts exceeded their authority by making subjective calls about the health of a marriage. She cites a 2004 state Supreme Court precedent holding that what matters with respect to marital privilege is that the union is valid and that the communications took place while the spouses were together. That ruling, she argues, doesn't distinguish between ‘‘good’’ and ‘‘bad’’ marriages.

The justices on the state high court in Hartford heard arguments on Wednesday.