The Supreme Court will begin its 2025-26 term on Monday with the justices hearing a case over whether blocking a lawyer from speaking with his client about that client’s testimony during overnight recess of the court is unconstitutional.
The case of Villarreal v. Texas centers on whether a trial court abridged David Villarreal’s 6th Amendment rights when it barred him from discussing his testimony with his attorney during an overnight recess of the court, which occurred in the middle of him testifying in his trial on murder charges. Villarreal, in appealing his murder conviction, argued his 6th Amendment right to “assistance of counsel” was violated.
Villarreal’s lawyers point to two previous Supreme Court rulings, 1976’s Geders v. United States and 1989’s Perry v. Leeke, as evidence
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