Is this just an assertion that no money == no counsel, or is there some other attack on the 6th amendment here?
I think the notion that 'clean' assets can be frozen pre-trial is unfair, but as long as a public defender is actually available, that would seem to satisfy the amendment.
Yes, the theoretical availability of public defenders satisfies the literal text of the amendment. That being said, effectively banning most private counsel (except those working for free or possibly on contingency) and, in practice, forcing most defendants to rely on a government-employed counsel means locking up the spirit and throwing away the key.
Isn't the spirit of the amendment that everyone should have a good defense? The spirit of the amendment, to me, doesn't really seem to be "you can have as good a defense as you can afford", but more like, "you have the right to a good defense", period. Put differently, if a public defender isn't good enough to satisfy the spirit of the 6th amendment when someone who has money is on trial, then it should also not be good enough for the spirit of the 6th amendment when someone who doesn't have money is on trial.
I could possibly see the spirit of the amendment better served if everyone were defended via the same public-defender system, regardless of income level. That would provide equal access to justice, and also provide middle-class and wealthy people an incentive to make sure it's actually properly funded, since it's the system that would defend them, not only poor people. I'm not sure if that's a better or worse interpretation of the letter of the constitution, though.
In Norway, there is no dedicated public defender system. Instead what happens is that the bar association negotiates rates with the government, and most lawfirms will take cases paid for by the government.
There are still limitations. E.g. someone going private could hire a team to spend whatever time necessary while someone being defended under the public system will get one lawyer subject to billing limitations. And people relying on the public system does not get to pick and choose. But at least you have a good shot at getting someone good, that is not overloaded with cases.
As an example, I was sued by the government for refusing to accept formalities around my refusal to accept conscription (a small number of people go to jail in Norway for it every now and again for 3 months or so, and they keep making the accepted reasons to get out of it more lenient to make people just pick one of the accepted reasons rather than make a point; for my part it was very much to make a point, though I didn't end up in jail in the end), and my government appointed defence lawyer was one of the top lawyers in the country, who had argued cases in front of the Supreme Court multiple times, and who had conscription related cases as a special interest.
It's quite tragicomic to me that left-wing Norway has privatized the public defender system exactly to provide more equal access, while the US hold on to a socialized system that practically guarantees unequal access to justice.
So the same government that is spending money to prosecute you gets to determine how much money they will spend on a public defender for you? We've covered this ground before:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10177778
Most public defenders offices are so oversubscribed and underfunded that they can't really provide good representation for the majority of their clients.
That sounds like a different argument: that the current public-defender system operates so poorly that the result violates the 6th amendment by failing to provide effective counsel. But the proper remedy there would be to issue an injunction ordering the system to be improved, not to unfreeze certain defendants' assets, since the latter would leave the 6th amendment violation uncured in the case of defendants who don't have assets in the first place.
The current case seems to be arguing something different: that freezing defendant's assets that they could use to pay for counsel is a 6th amendment violation even assuming an effective public-defender system. That requires a separate right, something like: the right to pay for the best defense you can afford. Afaict, this is at the Supreme Court because they've never ruled either way on whether the 6th amendment includes such a right; the previous cases have focused on the minimum threshold for what constitutes effective assistance of counsel.
Generally against asset forfeiture, but if they're going to do it, maybe using it only to fund public defenders for all would balance out the incentive for the government to seize the money in the first place.
I think the notion that 'clean' assets can be frozen pre-trial is unfair, but as long as a public defender is actually available, that would seem to satisfy the amendment.