The Sixth Amendment guarantees that, “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to . . . have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”  Despite this constitutional guarantee, a Texas trial court prevented David Asa Villarreal from fully conferring with his counsel during a critical stage of his trial. As the only defense witness, his testimony couldn’t have been more vital: accused of murder, Mr. Villarreal’s defense was that he acted in self-defense. An hour into Mr. Villarreal’s direct testimony at trial, the judge called a preplanned 24-hour recess during which he prohibited Mr. Villarreal from discussing his testimony with his attorney. 

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that the trial judge’s order did not violate Mr. Villarreal’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel because it only barred discussion of Mr. Villarreal’s testimony while allowing discussion of other matters. In its interpretation of Supreme Court precedent, the court reasoned that the issue turned on “the type of communication being restricted,” rather than the length of the recess or the fact that the recess took place during a critical stage of trial. The decision below fundamentally undermines the Sixth Amendment’s ability to fulfill its fundamental role as a safeguard of liberty. 

In June 2025, CAC filed an amicus brief in support of Mr. Villarreal at the Supreme Court. Our brief makes three principal arguments. 

First, the historical heritage of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel establishes its role as a critical safeguard of life and liberty. At the time of the Founding, English common law recognized only a limited right to the assistance of counsel that left many defendants arbitrarily accused of serious crimes and forced to face the well-resourced prosecutor without counsel or knowledge of the law. By the time the Framers of our Constitution began drafting the Sixth Amendment, firsthand experience had shown the Founding generation that “the great instrument of arbitrary power is criminal prosecutions,” and that the assistance of counsel served as an important safeguard of liberty. Indeed, twelve of the thirteen original colonies had rejected the common law rule and recognized some form of a constitutional or statutory right to counsel. The fact that the federal Constitution omitted a provision guaranteeing the right to counsel was lamented by state lawmakers, many of whom sought the inclusion of a declaration of rights with such a provision included. Thus, when it came time to draft the Bill of Rights, there was no debate or controversy regarding the adoption of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. 

Second, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the Sixth Amendment requires that an accused have meaningful access to the effective assistance of counsel at all “critical stages” of a criminal proceeding—including when a defendant is testifying. And in Geders v. United States, the Court explicitly held that a defendant is constitutionally entitled to confer with counsel during an overnight recess occurring in the middle of his testimony. While the Court later clarified in Perry v. Leeke that such access may be briefly interrupted if a trial court “decided that there is a good reason to” pause “the trial for a few minutes,” that decision did nothing to undermine the Court’s holding in Geders—to the contrary, in Perry, the Court reaffirmed Geders.  

Finally, the limitation the trial court imposed on Mr. Villarreal’s ability to confer with his attorney violates the Sixth Amendment. Mr. Villarreal, who faced murder charges and whose testimony was essential to the defense’s theory of self-defense, was prevented from discussing critical matters with his counsel for the duration of a 24-hour overnight recess. By prohibiting Mr. Villarreal from discussing his testimony with his counsel when he needed the assistance of counsel the most—during his case-in-chief—the trial court deprived him of the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of “the guiding hand of counsel.” The fact that the trial court’s order prohibited only discussion of Mr. Villarreal’s testimony does not cure the constitutional violation, as this necessarily restricts discussion of other key matters relating to his defense.