Opinion ID: 2630572
Heading Depth: 6
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Voluntariness of the Allocution Statement

Text: ¶ 117 I next address whether Maestas's statement was compelled or involuntary. In contending that his statement at sentencing was involuntary, Maestas does not claim that the sentencing judge compelled him to attend, or participate in, the sentencing hearing. Nor does Maestas claim that the sentencing judge threatened him with a harsher penalty if he refused to admit to the robberies, or promised him leniency if he did. Instead, Maestas concedes in his brief that, after his conviction for the robberies, he allocuted to obtain leniency. [10] The pressure to obtain leniency, he argues, made his allocution statement involuntary and thus excludable. ¶ 118 Although a sentencing judge has the discretion to consider numerous factors in imposing sentence, including a defendant's acceptance of responsibility, any inducement this creates does not compel an accused to make self-incriminating statements within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. See Harvey v. Shillinger, 76 F.3d 1528, 1531, 1535 (10th Cir.1996) (ruling that the defendant's allocution following conviction of various offenses was admissible at a later trial for conspiracy to commit the same offenses, even though the defendant had allocuted to obtain leniency). Applying the United States Supreme Court's Fifth Amendment jurisprudence to the specific context of statements made at sentencing, the Harvey court concluded as follows: [T]he privilege against compelled self-incrimination is not offended when a defendant yields to the pressure to testify on the issue of punishment in the hope of leniency. A defendant's choice to exercise the right to allocution, like the choice to exercise his right to testify, is entirely his own; he may speak to the court, but he is not required to do so. Id. at 1535. ¶ 119 Chief Justice Durham argues that [t]he right to allocution would be meaningless if a convicted person's allocution statements could be used against him or her in a subsequent prosecution. Chief Justice Durham fears that defendants will not allocute after being informed that their statements could be used against them at any retrial. All defendants have the right to testify in their own behalf and the right to refuse to testify against themselves. These two rights weigh against each other. Once a defendant has determined to testify, that defendant effectively waives the right to remain silent and the right to avoid the consequences of remaining silent. Torcia, § 357. By rendering Maestas's allocution statement inadmissible in this case, however, the lead opinion would elevate the right to allocution above the right to testify in one's own behalf, allowing a defendant to allocute without waiving the right to remain silent. Allocution statements would receive substantially more protection than statements made at trial. Such disparate treatment is not justified. ¶ 120 I agree with the reasoning of Harvey and reject Maestas's claim that his allocution statement was compelled and thus inadmissible. In choosing to speak at sentencing, Maestas made a choice similar to those frequently made by criminal defendants: instead of remaining silent and avoiding self-incrimination, he tried to mitigate his sentence by admitting to the robberies. The fact that Maestas allocuted to obtain leniency does not make the statement compelled or involuntary under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. To the extent that Maestas felt pressure to speak due to his attorney's earlier ineffective assistance at trial, it goes to the weight of the statement, not its constitutional admissibility. See Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 164-67, 107 S.Ct. 515, 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986) (noting that a confession is not involuntary or inadmissible under the Due Process Clause even when it results from outrageous behavior of a non-state actor). Accordingly, I would hold that the trial court correctly ruled that Maestas's allocution statement was voluntary.