6th Amendment News: Jury Rights, Defender Funding, and Reforms

Sixth Amendment news over the past two terms has centered on three fronts: a run of Supreme Court decisions clarifying the right to counsel and the Confrontation Clause, a looming case that could end the six-person jury in several states, and a deepening funding crisis in federal public defense. Two justices have also called for reconsidering the Court’s confrontation doctrine, and Louisiana has enacted a law that critics say penalizes defendants who waive a jury trial.

Villarreal v. Texas Limits Attorney Contact During Testimony

On February 25, 2026, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed in Villarreal v. Texas that a trial judge may bar a testifying defendant from discussing his ongoing testimony with his lawyers during an overnight recess, so long as consultation on other matters remains open.¹

David Asa Villarreal was tried for the murder of Aaron Estrada and claimed self-defense. He was the sole defense witness, and his direct examination stretched into a second day. Before the overnight recess, the trial judge told Villarreal and his attorneys they could not discuss his testimony, though they were free to talk about sentencing, trial strategy, and other topics. Villarreal was convicted and sentenced to sixty years.²

Justice Jackson wrote for the majority, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. The opinion reconciled two earlier decisions: Geders v. United States (1976), which struck down a total ban on attorney contact during an overnight recess, and Perry v. Leeke (1989), which upheld a ban during a fifteen-minute break. The distinction, the Court said, is about content rather than duration. A defendant who takes the stand takes on a witness’s obligations, and courts may restrict “discussion of testimony for its own sake” to protect the trial’s truth-seeking function, but they cannot block consultation on strategy, plea options, or other protected subjects.¹

Justice Alito concurred, noting that a defendant’s right to testify was not recognized as a constitutional right until Rock v. Arkansas (1987). Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, concurred only in the judgment and said the majority “needlessly expands our precedents.”³ The Constitutional Accountability Center, which supported Villarreal, called the ruling “disappointing” but noted the Court “made clear the limits of its decision.”⁴

Pitts v. Mississippi Requires Case-Specific Findings for Child-Witness Screening

On November 24, 2025, in an unsigned summary reversal, the Court held in Pitts v. Mississippi that the Confrontation Clause permits shielding a child abuse witness from the defendant’s view “only if a court hears evidence and issues a case-specific finding of the requisite necessity.” The trial court had allowed the child to testify from behind a screen as a matter of routine, without any tailored finding. The Court remanded to Mississippi, which can still argue that the violation was harmless error.⁵

Two Justices Push To Rethink Crawford

Beyond Pitts, the Confrontation Clause has drawn attention from inside the Court. In March 2025, when the Court denied review in Franklin v. New York, a case asking whether statements made to a bail-recommendation agency are “testimonial,” Justices Alito and Gorsuch publicly questioned Crawford v. Washington, the 2004 decision that reshaped confrontation analysis.⁶

Justice Alito wrote that recent historical scholarship undermines Crawford‘s account of the common law and that the decision has failed to produce “predictable and consistent results.” Justice Gorsuch agreed the Court “may need to rethink our course sometime soon,” but suggested lower courts should first apply the 2024 ruling in Smith v. Arizona, which endorsed the “primary-purpose” test for identifying testimonial statements. Gorsuch questioned whether the primary-purpose test has a sound textual or historical basis and proposed a different question: whether the government seeks to use an out-of-court statement at trial in place of live testimony.⁷

Nothing has changed yet. But two justices openly inviting a rewrite of a foundational precedent is a signal worth watching.

Kian v. Florida and the Fight Over Six-Person Juries

The most consequential case ahead may be Kian v. Florida. On June 15, 2026, the Supreme Court agreed to review Hamed Kian’s challenge to Florida’s use of six-person juries in all non-capital criminal cases. Kian argued in Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal that the Sixth Amendment entitles defendants charged with serious crimes to a twelve-person jury; the appellate court affirmed his conviction in a summary decision.⁸

A ruling in Kian’s favor would reach beyond Florida to at least five other states that allow juries of fewer than twelve.⁹ Justice Gorsuch has already tipped his hand: in a 2022 dissent from the denial of certiorari in Khorrami v. Arizona, he wrote that the Sixth Amendment “meant a trial before 12 members of the community — nothing less.”¹⁰

Gorsuch’s Expanding Jury-Trial Campaign

Justice Gorsuch has become the Court’s most active voice for pushing the jury trial guarantee into terrain courts have historically left to judges.

In Erlinger v. United States (2024), Gorsuch wrote the 6–3 majority opinion holding that a jury, not a judge, must decide whether prior offenses under the Armed Career Criminal Act were committed on separate occasions. The opinion said there is “no efficiency exception to the Fifth and Sixth Amendments” and that a jury must find “every fact essential to an offender’s punishment.”¹⁰

In February 2025, Gorsuch dissented from the denial of certiorari in Rimlawi v. United States, a healthcare fraud case where restitution rested on a judge’s factual findings. He argued that the logic of Apprendi v. New Jersey should reach restitution too: if only a jury may find facts that increase a defendant’s exposure to imprisonment or fines, it is “difficult to see how a judge’s factual findings might suffice to increase a criminal defendant’s exposure to a restitution award.” He pointed to historical evidence that founding-era juries were responsible for the findings underlying restitution.¹¹

In June 2026, the Court ruled 5–4 in Perttu v. Richards that prisoners are entitled to a jury trial on whether they exhausted administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, when that question is “intertwined” with the merits of their underlying claim. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority. Justice Barrett dissented, joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh.¹²

Louisiana’s New Jury Waiver Law

Louisiana House Bill 310, signed by Governor Jeff Landry on May 29, 2026, requires that when a defendant waives a jury trial, the case be randomly reassigned to a different judge. Prosecutors can block the reassignment and keep the original judge. The law also resets the speedy trial clock whenever a case is reassigned, which can extend pretrial incarceration.¹³

Supporters, including Attorney General Liz Murrill, say the measure prevents “judge shopping.” Public defender Meghan Garvey called it an erosion of individual rights and said the speedy trial reset amounts to punishing defendants who choose a bench trial. A separate proposed constitutional amendment that would have required prosecutorial consent for any jury waiver was sidelined before a final vote. No legal challenges had been filed as of the law’s passage.¹³

Federal Public Defenders in a Funding Crisis

More than 90 percent of people charged with federal crimes cannot afford a private attorney, which makes the federal defender system the primary vehicle for the Sixth Amendment’s counsel guarantee in federal court.¹⁴ Federal Defender organizations have been under a hiring freeze for three years and sit more than 500 positions below approved staffing. An accounting error in fiscal year 2024 left funding more than $100 million short of what was needed, and FY2025 funding was frozen at those artificially low levels.¹⁵

The consequences became visible in mid-2025. From July through November 2025, courts ran out of funds to pay private panel attorneys appointed under the Criminal Justice Act. For more than four months, these lawyers and essential support providers, including investigators, interpreters, and expert witnesses, went without compensation. The payment outage caused trial delays and at least one case dismissal.¹⁵ The American College of Trial Lawyers called the situation a “constitutional emergency.”¹⁴

In December 2025, 47 bipartisan lawmakers, led by Senator Peter Welch and Representative Suzanne Bonamici, called for the full $1.76 billion appropriation requested by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts for FY2026, noting the program was $194 million short of what it required.¹⁵

State Reforms: Idaho Consolidates, Iowa Pushes Back on Its Court

Idaho became the first state to consolidate all indigent public defense under a single state agency. The State Public Defender office launched on October 1, 2024, and was assigned more than 39,000 criminal cases in its first months. In April 2025, Governor Brad Little signed an $83 million budget for the agency’s first full fiscal year, up from an initial $52 million startup allocation. The budget raised hourly rates for contract attorneys from $100 to $125 and funded new institutional offices in four counties.¹⁶

Iowa has gone the other way. In early January 2026, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that judges and prosecutors can no longer charge defendants court costs, including public defender fees, when their cases are dismissed, finding no statutory authority for the practice. Within weeks, legislators introduced HSB 616 to override the ruling and restore the ability to use court costs as leverage in plea negotiations. The Iowa County Attorneys Association lobbied for passage, calling the practice a “staple” of local criminal law. The ACLU of Iowa argued that charging indigent defendants for their own public defenders, especially when the charges are dismissed, is unconstitutional. Between 2012 and 2022, the state charged low-income residents $151.2 million in legal fees and recovered an average of 2.3 percent.¹⁷

A Tighter Standard for Ineffective Assistance Claims

The Court has also been reshaping challenges to the quality of court-appointed counsel. Under Strickland v. Washington (1984), a defendant must show that counsel’s performance was deficient and that the deficiency prejudiced the outcome. In Thornell v. Jones, decided 6–3 in May 2024, the Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s grant of habeas relief to a death-row inmate, ruling that the lower court had overstated mitigating evidence and downplayed aggravating factors. Justice Alito wrote for the majority; Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissented.¹⁸

Weeks later, in Alabama v. Williams, the Court vacated the Eleventh Circuit’s grant of habeas relief in another death penalty case and ordered reconsideration under the Thornell framework. Together, the decisions signal that the Court expects lower courts to apply a more demanding standard before granting relief on ineffective assistance claims, particularly in capital cases. Critics say that trend makes the Sixth Amendment’s counsel guarantee harder to enforce after the fact.¹⁸

With Kian ahead, Gorsuch continuing to press jury rights, two justices inviting a rewrite of confrontation doctrine, and public defense systems strained at both federal and state levels, the Sixth Amendment is generating more legal movement now than it has in years.

1
Supreme Court of the United States. Villarreal v. Texas, No. 24-557
2
Cornell Law Institute. Villarreal v. Texas, No. 24-557
3
SCOTUSblog. Villarreal v. Texas
4
Constitutional Accountability Center. Supreme Court Considers the Scope of a Defendant’s Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel
5
SCOTUSblog. Supreme Court Issues Opinions on Confrontation Clause, Post-Conviction Relief
6
SCOTUSblog. Alito and Gorsuch Call for Court To Reconsider Confrontation Clause Precedent
7
Courthouse News Service. Alito, Gorsuch Urge Supreme Court To Consider Nuance of Defendant’s Right To Confront Witnesses
8
SCOTUSblog. Court Agrees To Hear Three New Cases, Including on the Constitutionality of Six-Person Juries
9
Federal Defenders. SCOTUS To Decide if Six-Person Jury for Felony Violates Sixth Amendment
10
SCOTUSblog. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s Right To Jury Trial Revolution
11
Supreme Court of the United States. Rimlawi v. United States, Nos. 24-23, 24-25, 24-5032
12
SCOTUSblog. Perttu v. Richards
13
Louisiana Illuminator. Waive Jury Trials
14
American College of Trial Lawyers. Statement Respecting Funding of Federal Defender and Criminal Justice Act Services
15
U.S. Senate – Senator Peter Welch. Welch, Bonamici Lead 47 Bicameral Lawmakers in Call To Provide Additional Funding for the Federal Public Defender Program
16
Idaho State Public Defender. How the 2026 SPD Budget Will Improve Public Defense in Idaho
17
The Marshall Project. Court Iowa Fee Lawyer
18
Death Penalty Information Center. By Reversing Grants of Relief, Supreme Court Signals Lower Courts To Apply Stricter Approach to Review of Ineffective Assistance of Counsel Claims