Opinion ID: 2381990
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Instructions Regarding Allocution

Text: The lower court instructed the jury as follows concerning Harris's right of allocution: A Defendant has a common law right of allocution, i.e., to address the sentencing body in mitigation of punishment, however, his statement in allocution is not evidence or testimony. During allocution the Defendant is not under oath, and thus not subject to the penalties of perjury and to cross-examination. Any statement Jackie Harris makes to you should not be regarded as evidence but rather as his statement in mitigation of punishment. Harris argues that the trial judge through this instruction denigrated his right of allocution. We agree. In Booth v. State, 306 Md. at 199, 507 A.2d at 1112, we held that it was permissible for the prosecutor, in argument, to contrast unsworn allocution with the elevated level of evidence which is sworn testimony subject to cross-examination. We also said that [b]ecause the content of a convicted defendant's allocution may be considered by the jury or court in mitigation, the State, as a matter of nonconstitutional Maryland law, may comment on that allocution and urge its rejection by arguments which may include attacking the defendant's credibility by explicit reference to the lack of an oath and to the lack of testing by cross-examination. Id. The instruction now before us referred to those matters, but it in effect told the jury that it should disregard any facts stated during allocution, because those facts were not evidence or testimony. This is so because the sentencing jury was previously instructed that it was to decide the case only on ... evidence. Booth makes it plain that the credibility of what is said at allocution may be questioned, but Booth makes it equally plain that statements made at allocution may not be disregarded merely because they are not under oath. Because the instruction told the jurors they should not heed the latter precept, it was improper.