In the 1990 case of Paul McNeil v. Wisconsin, the U.S Supreme Court addressed whether a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel was violated when police initiated questioning after he had been charged with a crime and obtained incriminating statements without his lawyer present. The court ruled in favor of Wisconsin, holding that there was no violation as long as the accused knowingly and voluntarily waived their rights to have an attorney present during questioning. This decision clarified that while defendants do have a right to counsel once they are formally charged with a crime, this does not prohibit law enforcement from initiating further interrogation if proper waivers are obtained beforehand.

In the dissenting opinion for Paul McNeil v. Wisconsin, the justice argued that the majority's decision to uphold McNeil's conviction was a violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The justice contended that once an individual has invoked their right to legal representation during police interrogation, any waiver of this right in subsequent interrogations should be presumed invalid unless it is made in the presence of counsel. They believed that by allowing police officers to initiate further questioning after a suspect has requested an attorney, and then using any resulting statements as evidence against them at trial, undermines the protections guaranteed by Miranda v. Arizona and Edwards v. Arizona decisions which were designed specifically to prevent such abuses from occurring.