Court Opinion

ID: 9475273
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:22:10.594983+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:36.987027
License: Public Domain

SCALIA, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the majority that the District Court’s order prohibiting defendant from discussing his testimony with his attorney during a weekend recess was not significantly less invasive of sixth amendment rights than the order prohibiting all contact between a defendant and his attorney during an overnight recess in Geders v. United States, 425 U.S. 80, 96 S.Ct. 1330, 47 L.Ed.2d 592 (1976). I therefore join in the majority’s holdings that a prohibition on attorney-defendant discussion during substantial recesses, even if limited to discussion of testimony, violates the sixth amendment and that, like the similar violation at issue in Geders, it constitutes per se reversible error.
Emulating the narrow approach taken by the Geders Court, which held only that total prohibitions of attorney-defendant contact during overnight recesses violated the sixth amendment, declining to address “limitations imposed in other circumstances,” Geders, 425 U.S. at 91, 96 S.Ct. at 1336, I do not reach the issues discussed in the majority opinion not presented by the facts of this case — in particular, the rule of law applicable to total or partial bans on attorney-defendant discussion during brief recesses. I therefore concur in part and concur in the judgment.