6th Amendment Right to Counsel
Bryan Torres was convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to deliver methamphetamine and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He appealed his conviction, arguing that he was deprived of his right to legal counsel during the course of his trial. The Fifth Circuit agreed, and reversed his conviction.
The Government presented several witnesses who were involved in the conspiracy during the first two days of Torres’s trial. The last Government witness was excused at 7:09 p.m. on the second day. Torres’s trial lawyer said that Torres intended to testify and that his testimony would take “several hours.” The court instructed Torres to take the stand and he testified for about 50 minutes. Then the judge declared an overnight recess, but prohibited Torres from speaking to anyone about his testimony, including his lawyer.
The Fifth Circuit held that the trial court erred by prohibiting Torres from speaking to his lawyer during the overnight recess. Such a long interruption, the court said, implicates “the defendant’s right to unrestricted access to his lawyer for advice on a variety of trial-related matters that is controlling in the context of a long recess,” quoting Perry v. Leeke, 488 U.S. 272, 284 (1989). It concluded that the sequestration order violated Torres’s substantial rights because a defendant must have the actual assistance of counsel at every critical stage of the trial for a court’s reliance on the fairness of the trial to be justified.