Sixth Amendment

In a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court reversed denial of a defendant’s motion to change venue. The defendant was charged in federal court in California with falsifying a document with intent to obstruct a federal investigation under 18 U.S.C. § 1519. The defendant had created and provided a false invoice to FBI agents interviewing him in his home in Seattle, and the agents discovered the invoice was false upon returning to San Fransisco. The Court held that the offense was completed in Seattle and rejected arguments that venue was proper based on the intended effects or actual effect on the investigation.

The Supreme Court held that a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel was not violated by a judge’s order that he and his attorney not discuss his ongoing testimony during a 24-hour recess at trial. The Court compared Geders v. United States, which prohibited a complete overnight ban on attorney-client consultation, and Perry v. Leeke, which permitted limited restrictions during a brief mid-testimony recess, and upheld narrow restrictions prohibiting a defendant and his attorneys from managing his ongoing testimony, while recognizing that a defendant may still discuss trial strategy with their attorney, other witnesses or evidence, evidentiary rulings, plea negotiations, sentencing, and other matters, even when those discussions incidentally involve the testimony already given.

In a 6-3 opinion, the Supreme Court held that a defendant’s Confrontation Clause rights were not violated by the trial court’s admission of his co-defendant’s confession, during which his co-defendant stated that the defendant committed the murder, because the defendant’s name had been redacted from the confession. Even though the defendant was logically the only person the co-defendant’s confession could be referring to, the Supreme Court held it was not “directly accusatory,” or at least not directly enough, to warrant reversal.

In a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution “permits the retrial of a defendant following a trial in an improper venue conducted before a jury drawn from the wrong district.”

The Fourth Circuit affirmed a defendant’s conviction for conspiring to transmit classified national defense information. As a matter of first impression, the Court held that the district court’s invocation of the silent witness rule, which prevented certain admitted evidence, including both classified and publicly available information, from being presented in open court, did not violate the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial under these circumstances.

Alfonzo Lewis was convicted of drug offenses and challenged his arrest, jury selection, and other aspects of his trial on appeal. Lewis had initially been investigated by a federal drug task force that included state and local agents. After agents witnessed him leaving a house after a drug transaction, local law enforcement conducted a traffic […]

The Fifth Circuit reversed a defendant’s conviction after finding that the Government violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause when it presented testimonial hearsay from two non-testifying witnesses that alleged the defendant sold drugs. In doing so, the Fifth Circuit recounted its recent cases involving Confrontation Clause challenges and how the government “has repeatedly failed to take the lesson.”

The Ninth Circuit reversed a defendant’s conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the defendant’s trial and motions hearing had been closed to the public, which only had a live audio stream of the proceedings. The Court concluded this violated the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial.

In a 8-1 opinion, the Supreme Court reversed Hemphill’s conviction and remanded his case for a new trial. The Court held that the admission of a transcript from another suspect’s plea allocution implicating Hemphill violated Hemphill’s Sixth Amendment confrontation right. The Court rejected its previous “reliability” exception to the confrontation requirement—drawn from Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56 (1980)—clarifying that the only real exception permitted was in the case of an unavailable witness whom the defendant had already had an opportunity to cross-examine on the same matter. The Court also rejected the assertion that the “opening the door rule” applied in the context of the Confrontation Clause.

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed a nurse practitioner’s convictions for drug conspiracy and healthcare fraud in a “pill mill” case. The Court held there was sufficient evidence to convict her of the drug offenses despite the government’s failure to provide any patient testimony that the prescription medications they received were unnecessary, and it affirmed her conviction for healthcare fraud based on her knowledge and participation in filing claims to government programs for office visits where patients received illegal prescriptions. The Court held that the trial court erred in instructing the jury that the parties had stipulated to disputed fact, but held this did not amount to an improper directed verdict or deprive the defendant of her defense because the instruction did not relate to an element of the charged offense or any of the facts necessary to establish one of those elements, and the defendant was still able to present her theory of defense. The Court also rejected the defendant’s evidentiary claims.