In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Restrictions on representation imposed during trial have been stricken as impermissible interference with defense counsel. For example, the Court invalidated application of a statute that empowered a judge to deny final summations before judgment in a nonjury trial; explaining that “the right to the assistance of counsel . . . ensures to the defense in a criminal trial the opportunity to participate fully and fairly in the adversary factfinding process.” 1 In Geders v. United States,2 the Court held that a trial judge’s order preventing a defendant from consulting his counsel during a 17-hour overnight recess between his direct and cross-examination, to prevent tailoring of testimony or “coaching,” deprived the defendant of his right to assistance of counsel and was invalid.3 The Court has treated other direct and indirect restraints upon counsel as violations of the Fourteenth Amendment right to due process.4
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Footnotes
- 1
- Herring v. New York, 422 U.S. 853, 858, 864–65 (1975). “[T]he right to the assistance to counsel has been understood to mean that there can be no restrictions upon the function of counsel in defending a criminal prosecution in accord with the traditions of the adversary factfinding process that has been constitutionalized in the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.” Id. at 857.
- 2
- 425 U.S. 80, 91 (1976).
- 3
- The Court distinguished Geders in Perry v. Leeke, 488 U.S. 272, 283–85 (1989), which upheld a trial court’s order that the defendant and his counsel not consult during a fifteen-minute recess between the defendant’s direct testimony and his cross-examination; see also Chandler v. Fretag, 348 U.S. 3, 10 (1954) (holding that denial of request for continuance “to employ and consult with counsel” deprived defendant of due process of law).
- 4
- E.g., Brooks v. Tennessee, 406 U.S. 605, 612–13 (1972) (alternative holding) (statute requiring defendant to testify prior to any other witness for defense or to forfeit the right to testify denied him due process by depriving him of the tactical advice of counsel on whether to testify and when); Ferguson v. Georgia, 365 U.S. 570, 596 (1961) (concluding under the Fourteenth Amendment where Georgia statute, uniquely, barred sworn testimony by defendants, a defendant was entitled to the assistance of counsel in presenting the unsworn statement allowed him under Georgia law).