Opinion ID: 2545785
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Failure to Offer Defendant Allocution

Text: Defendant contends the trial court should, on its own initiative, have allowed him at this penalty retrial the opportunity to address the jury in allocution, that is, without being subject to cross-examination by the prosecutor. He acknowledges that we have repeatedly held there is no right of allocution at the penalty phase of a capital trial. (See, e.g., People v. Clark (1993) 5 Cal.4th 950, 1036-1037, 22 Cal. Rptr.2d 689, 857 P.2d 1099; People v. Nicolaus (1991) 54 Cal.3d 551, 583, 286 Cal. Rptr. 628, 817 P.2d 893; People v. Keenan (1988) 46 Cal.3d 478, 511, 250 Cal.Rptr. 550, 758 P.2d 1081.) But he insists that these cases do not address his claim that failure to permit allocution violates the right of a capital defendant to equal protection of the law, because a defendant in a noncapital case may at the time of sentencing address the court without being subject to cross-examination at the time of sentencing. We rejected such a claim in People v. Clark, supra, 5 Cal.4th at pages 1036 to 1037, 22 Cal.Rptr.2d 689, 857 P.2d 1099, albeit without analysis, merely observing that the defendant in that case had cited no authority in support of the contention. In any event, defendant's equal protection claim fails at the threshold, because he cannot show that he was denied a right granted to defendants in noncapital cases. Although one decision of the Court of Appeal has held that a noncapital defendant is entitled to allocution as a matter of right ( In re Shannon B. (1994) 22 Cal. App.4th 1235, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 800; but see, contra, People v. Sanchez (1977) 72 Cal. App.3d 356, 359, 140 Cal.Rptr. 110; People v. Wiley (1976) 57 Cal.App.3d 149, 166, 129 Cal.Rptr. 13; People v. Cross (1963) 213 Cal.App.2d 678, 682, 28 Cal.Rptr. 918), no court has held that in a noncapital case a trial court must, on its own initiative, offer the defendant allocution. Thus, here the trial court did not violate defendant's right to equal protection when it did not, on its own initiative, make defendant such an offer.