Opinion ID: 757051
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Allocution as an Independent Constitutional Right

Text: 45 Hall next asserts that he possesses a constitutional right to allocute before the jury. The Supreme Court has never squarely addressed the issue of whether a defendant who affirmatively requests the opportunity to allocute, either before the court or the jury, is denied due process by the trial court's refusal to grant the request. In Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 82 S.Ct. 468, 7 L.Ed.2d 417 (1962), the Court held that a district court's failure to expressly ask a defendant represented by counsel whether he wished to make a statement before imposition of sentence was not an error of constitutional dimension and therefore provided no basis for a § 2255 collateral attack upon the defendant's sentence. See id. at 428, 82 S.Ct. 468. The court expressly declined to consider whether the district court's denial of an affirmative request by a defendant to make a statement prior to the imposition of sentence would rise to the level of constitutional error. See id. at 429, 82 S.Ct. 468; see also McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183, 219 n. 22, 91 S.Ct. 1454, 28 L.Ed.2d 711 (1971) (noting that whether a trial court's denial of a defendant's request to plead for mercy rises to the level of a constitutional violation remains an open question), vacated in part on other grounds, Crampton v. Ohio, 408 U.S. 941, 92 S.Ct. 2873, 33 L.Ed.2d 765 (1972). 46 We conclude that a criminal defendant in a capital case does not possess a constitutional right to make an unsworn statement of remorse before the jury that is not subject to cross-examination. In Green v. United States, 365 U.S. 301, 81 S.Ct. 653, 5 L.Ed.2d 670 (1961), Justice Frankfurter observed that the ultimate value of allocution as a procedural right in the context of modern criminal procedure rests in the fact that [t]he most persuasive counsel may not be able to speak for a defendant as the defendant might, with halting eloquence, speak for himself. Id. at 304, 81 S.Ct. 653. Neither the government nor Hall contends that Hall would not have been permitted to testify at the sentencing hearing and thereby in his own words introduce any information relevant to a mitigating factor. 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c). We simply cannot conclude that fundamental fairness required that Hall be allowed to make such a statement without being sworn or subject to cross-examination. 7 This conclusion is bolstered by the varied conclusions that the states have reached, discussed supra, as to whether a criminal defendant has a right to make an unsworn statement of remorse or plea for mercy before a sentencing jury. Cf. Medina v. California, 505 U.S. 437, 446, 112 S.Ct. 2572, 120 L.Ed.2d 353 (1992) (Historical practice is probative of whether a procedural rule can be characterized as fundamental.).