Opinion ID: 1794408
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Restrictions on Time and Manner of Allocution

Text: Appellant filed a pretrial motion requesting that Appellant be allowed an allocution to the jury before it deliberated on his sentence. The trial court granted this motion but Appellant further requested that he be permitted to make the allocution after the closing argument of the prosecutor. He claimed that to do otherwise would not be effective and would allow the prosecutor to conduct a de facto cross-examination. This request was denied. Appellant argues that Section 11 of the Kentucky Constitution provides that in criminal prosecutions the accused has a right to be heard by himself and counsel. This serves as the basis for the right to hybrid counsel. [21] However, such language has never been held to create a right of allocution in Kentucky. The Oregon case cited by Appellant to buttress his argument, State v. Rogers [22] does not provide legal support for the right of allocution as he claims. While Rogers was factually similar to this case, the Oregon court concluded that the trial judge had broad discretion to conduct the proceedings and that nothing in the Oregon constitutional provision overrode the authority of the trial judge to conduct the trial in an orderly manner. The Oregon Supreme Court determined that the trial judge had acted within his discretion and that there was no error. It should be observed that the Oregon court first interpreted its constitution as including a right to allocution in 1988. This Court has indirectly considered the issue of allocution in Quarels v. Commonwealth, [23] but did not identify any right to allocution under the Kentucky constitution. It has long been held that the trial court has broad discretion in the conduct of the trial and that such actions, unless clearly erroneous, will not be disturbed on appeal. [24] Finally, the trial court did not err by requiring the allocution prior to the closing argument of the Commonwealth and the comment on allocution by the prosecutor was not improper. The timing of the allocution did not violate KRS 532.025(a) and did not allow a de facto examination of the accused.