&gt;the court will decide whether the government can freeze all of a defendant’s assets before trial, even those the government itself concedes aren’t tainted by any connection to criminality, thus effectively preventing that defendant from paying for his own defense.<p>The shadow issue of our time is equal access to the legal system.  It will be interesting to see how this changes the dynamic of the court system if the Supreme Court really decides that defendants cannot hire their own counsel though it is a bit like solving the equal access to education problem by banning all private colleges -- more than a little absurd.