Luis v. United States, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the pre-trial restraint of assets needed to retain a defendant's counsel of choice when those assets have not been used in conjunction with criminal activity. Background United States federal law allows courts to freeze a criminal defendant's assets when that individual is accused of violating federal banking or healthcare laws. However, assets may only be seized if they are "traceable to the crime" or if the property is "obtained as a result" of the crime and the defendant is either in the process of disposing or alienating those assets or the defendant intends to dispose of or alienate those assets in the future. To freeze these assets, the Attorney General of the United States is authorized to initiate civil proceedings to obtain a restraining order that freezes these assets or "any such property or property of equivalent value". In 2012, Luis Sila was charged by a federal grand jury of committing various health care crimes. Federal prosecutors claimed that Luis fraudulently procured nearly $45 million; prosecutors alleged that Luis spent most of the money she had acquired. In an attempt to preserve the $2 million remaining in her account for the payment of restitution and penalties, prosecutors applied for a pre-trial order that would prevent Luis from spending any of the remaining $2 million. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida approved the prosecutors' request and granted an order that prohibited Luis from "dissipating" her assets "up to the equivalent value of the proceeds of the Federal health care fraud ($45 million)". Both Luis and federal prosecutors conceded that the court's order restrained assets that were entirely unrelated to the alleged criminal activity and that the order prevented Luis from hiring the attorney of her choice to defend her at her criminal trial. In its ruling, the district court also recognized that the order would prevent Luis from hiring the attorney of her choice, but the court stated that "there is no Sixth Amendment right to use untainted, substitute assets to hire counsel", and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's ruling in a per curiam decision. Citing Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered v. United States and United States