The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that courts may place limitations on what a lawyer can discuss with his client during an overnight recess while the client is in the middle of testifying, finding it does not infringe on anyone’s constitutional rights.
The high court ruled 9-0 in Villarreal v. Texas that courts may limit discussion during overnight recesses between a lawyer and his client regarding the testimony the client is in the middle of giving in a trial, equating such bans to lawful restrictions on coaching in the courtroom while the client is physically on the stand. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the majority opinion, which was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts along with Justices Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
“A criminal defendant has many unassailable rights during his trial, including the right not to testify and the right to access his lawyer,” Jackson wrote. “But if and when a defendant takes the witness stand in his own defense, his status shifts. He does not shed his rights as a criminal defendant. But he does assume some of the burdens of a testifying witness.”
“The court here prohibited the defendant’s lawyer only from ‘managing’ the defendant’s testimony; it permitted all other discussion. Because we conclude that this qualified conferral order permissibly balanced the right to counsel against the burden of offering unaltered trial testimony, we affirm,” Jackson added, upholding the lower state court’s ruling.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch did not sign on to Jackson’s opinion, with Thomas writing his own opinion, concurring in judgment, which was joined by Gorsuch. Thomas said he could not join Jackson’s opinion because it “opines on hypothetical situations not before the Court and needlessly
expands our precedents,” but he said he otherwise agreed with siding with Texas in this case.
“It purports to ‘announce’ a ‘rule’ under which a defendant has a constitutional right to ‘discussion of testimony’ so long as that discussion is ‘incidental to other topics.’ It identifies new circumstances, not presented here, in which a defendant supposedly has a right to discuss matters related to his ongoing testimony. And it endorses a methodology under which ‘any conflict between the Sixth Amendment and the desire for untutored testimony must ‘be resolved in favor of the right to the assistance and guidance of counsel,’” Thomas wrote, outlining where he believes the majority went too far in its ruling.
“The majority opinion does not claim that its approach finds any support in the original meaning of the Sixth Amendment,” Thomas added. “The majority also does not claim that opining on matters not presented by the facts was necessary to decide this case, which involved an order that all agree was constitutional.”
David Villarreal had argued that his Sixth Amendment right to a lawyer was violated by a judge’s order during his trial on murder charges not to discuss his testimony during an overnight recess while he was in the midst of providing testimony. Texas argued the restriction was constitutionally permissible, which the high court unanimously agreed with on Wednesday.
SUPREME COURT SKEPTICAL OF ALLOWING LAWYER-CLIENT ‘COACHING’ DURING OVERNIGHT TRIAL RECESS
The Villarreal case was the first one the justices heard for oral arguments in their current term, which began in October 2025. After Wednesday’s ruling, the Supreme Court only has two outstanding cases it heard in October for which it has yet to release opinions. The two cases include a challenge to the constitutionality of Colorado’s “conversion therapy” ban, Chiles v. Salazar, and on race-based redistricting challenges, Louisiana v. Callais.
The Supreme Court has yet to announce its next opinion day, but it is expected to release rulings in every case it hears this term by the end of June.