Justices Skip Case on Prosecutors’ Attorney-Client Eavesdropping

The US Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to hear an appeal over whether prosecutors listening to privileged inmate calls with their lawyers violates the Sixth Amendment absent a showing of prejudice.

The Kansas City division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas engaged in the “widespread practice” of eavesdropping on calls to lawyers made by incarcerated defendants for years, Steven Hohn said in his petition. The practice went undetected for some time because prosecutors didn’t disclose the communications unless they were going to be used at trial.

Hohn’s appeal stemmed from a decision by the US Court of Appeals from the Tenth Circuit denying him habeas relief.

In rejecting Hohn’s challenge, the full Tenth Circuit overruled existing precedent. The appeals court said a defendant must show trial-specific prejudice in order to establish a Sixth Amendment claim based on an intrusion into the defendant’s attorney-client communications, even if it was intentional and unjustified.

“That rule at best tolerates, and at worst incentivizes, prosecutorial misconduct,” Hohn said.

The Tenth Circuit had previously said that accessing confidential attorney-client communications constituted a structural error requiring no showing of prejudice.

The decision deepened an existing circuit split, according to Hohn.

In its opposition to Hohn’s certioari petition, the government said Hohn had effectively consented to the monitoring of the six-minute call with his lawyer because there was a mechanism for privatizing attorney-client calls and he hadn’t taken advantage of it. It also said he overstated any circuit conflict.

Hohn is represented by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and federal defenders in the District of Kansas.

The case is United States v. Hohn, U.S., No. 24-1084, cert. denied 10/14/25.