Wright v. Van Patten
The Supreme Court reversed a federal appeals court that had granted a Wisconsin inmate habeas relief because his lawyer participated in his plea hearing by speakerphone rather than in person.
The Court held that no prior Supreme Court decision clearly established that a lawyer's absence from the courtroom by phone counts as a total denial of counsel, so under the strict limits Congress placed on federal habeas review, the state court's decision could not be second-guessed.
How it got here: Wisconsin courts rejected Van Patten's claim; he sought federal habeas relief, which the Seventh Circuit granted twice, and the State asked the Supreme Court to review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Joseph Van Patten pleaded no contest to a reduced homicide charge in Wisconsin after his lawyer attended the plea hearing only by speakerphone, not in person. Facing a 25-year sentence, Van Patten later argued his Sixth Amendment right to counsel was violated because his attorney was not physically present in the courtroom during this critical hearing.
The question before the Court
Could a state prisoner get his conviction thrown out in federal court just because his lawyer joined his plea hearing by speakerphone instead of in person?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that Van Patten was not entitled to federal habeas relief, because no Supreme Court precedent clearly established that a lawyer joining a plea hearing by speakerphone counts as a complete denial of counsel. Federal habeas law only lets courts override a state conviction when the state court unreasonably applied law the Supreme Court had already clearly settled, and this question was genuinely novel.
Since the Court's own cases gave no clear answer — and even suggested Van Patten's claim would fail under the ordinary Strickland test — it could not say Wisconsin's courts acted unreasonably in rejecting his Sixth Amendment claim. The Court left open, for a future case, whether counsel appearing only by phone actually violates the Constitution.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
The decision reinforces how narrow federal habeas review of state convictions is: unless the Supreme Court has already spoken clearly on a specific issue, federal courts generally cannot override a state court's judgment, even on serious constitutional claims like the right to counsel, leaving many novel legal questions to be resolved case by case rather than through habeas relief.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the Seventh Circuit for further proceedings consistent with this ruling, meaning Van Patten's habeas petition will ultimately be denied under the Court's reasoning. The decision leaves open — for another day — the separate question of whether telephone participation by counsel is itself sound practice or would violate the Sixth Amendment if reviewed directly rather than through the limited habeas lens.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly did not decide whether a lawyer's participation by speakerphone actually violates the Sixth Amendment or is good practice; it only decided that no existing Supreme Court precedent clearly established such a violation, so habeas relief was unavailable under the deferential federal review standard.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Stevens
“An unfortunate drafting error in the Court’s opinion in United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648 (1984), makes it necessary to join the Court’s judgment in this case.”Stevens explains why he reluctantly agrees with the outcome despite disagreeing with how Cronic was written.
Justice Stevens agreed with the result but wrote separately to explain that he thought Cronic contained a 'drafting error' — it should have said a defendant is entitled to counsel's presence 'in open court' but failed to add those words because the 1984 Court never anticipated phone-based representation. He suggested the Seventh Circuit's original reading, requiring physical presence, was actually correct, but that the narrower Wisconsin court reading was not objectively unreasonable under habeas review, distinguishing that from saying it was correct.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Federal habeas law lets a court disturb a state conviction only if the state court's decision was contrary to or unreasonably applied 'clearly established' Supreme Court precedent, not merely if the federal court disagrees with the outcome.
- The Court distinguished two different legal tests for ineffective-assistance claims: the ordinary Strickland test, which requires proof that the lawyer's performance was deficient and that this hurt the defendant, and the narrower Cronic exception, which presumes harm without any such proof when a lawyer was completely absent or the adversarial process broke down entirely.
- The Court found that none of its prior decisions had ever addressed whether a lawyer joining a plea hearing by speakerphone, rather than being physically absent altogether, counts as a 'complete denial of counsel' triggering the Cronic presumption.
- Because the question was genuinely novel and unresolved by any Supreme Court precedent, the Court concluded there was no clearly established federal law that the Wisconsin courts could have unreasonably applied.
- Applying the deferential habeas standard, the Court held that relief was unauthorized regardless of whether the speakerphone arrangement might have been problematic on direct appeal or as a matter of first principles.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Carey v. Musladin (549 U. S. 70)
The Court relied on Musladin's rule that habeas relief requires clearly established Supreme Court law, not just a plausible extension of prior cases.
Limits United States v. Cronic (466 U. S. 648)
The Court held Cronic's presumption of prejudice does not clearly extend to counsel appearing by speakerphone rather than being totally absent.