Opinion ID: 1118222
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: allocution an introduction

Text: As a rule, any classification for the sake of characterization without factual or logical definition adds little to the understanding of basic constitutional principles. I have always considered allocution to be constitutional within ingrained due process concepts under Wyoming law when following pervasive authority generally available in comment in Christy v. State, 731 P.2d 1204 (Wyo.1987) and find now no reason to change from that view. However, it hardly matters at all whether the characterization is constitutional or just a statutorily created foundational principle of Wyoming law, since allocution was instilled by statute in this state's judicial practice thirty years before statehood, 1869 Wyo. Terr.Gen.Laws ch. 74 §§ 158-60, and has continued for 123 years in essentially the same form, although transformed by action of this court from the superseded statute to a contemporary rule of criminal procedure. In 1869, our early Wyoming territorial ancestors provided as a criminal process requirement: Sec. 158. Before the sentence is pronounced, on the conviction of felony, the defendant shall be informed by the court of the verdict of the jury, and asked whether he has anything to say why judgment should not be pronounced against him. Sec. 159. If the defendant has nothing to say, or after he shall have made a statement, the court shall proceed to pronounce judgment as is provided by law. Sec. 160. Whenever any person shall be convicted, by confession or otherwise, of any offense punishable either in whole or in part by fine, such person may move the court to hear testimony in mitigation of the sentence; and it shall be the duty of the court to hear such testimony at such time as may be suitable and proper, at the term of court at which the motion is made, or said court may continue the case to a future term, on the same terms as the case might have been continued before verdict or confession; and it shall be the duty of the prosecuting attorney to attend to such proceedings on the behalf of the territory, and to offer any testimony necessary to give the court a true understanding of the case. Id. In March 1992, the Wyoming Supreme Court re-authenticated the right to allocution by continued inclusion in the Wyoming Rules of Criminal Procedure: (c) Sentence.  (1) Imposition of Sentence.     Before imposing sentence, the court shall also:       (B) Afford counsel for the defendant an opportunity to speak on behalf of the defendant; and (C) Address the defendant personally and determine if the defendant wishes to make a statement and to present any information in mitigation of the sentence. The attorney for the state shall have an equivalent opportunity to speak to the court. Upon a motion that is jointly filed by the defendant and by the attorney for the state, the court may hear in camera such a statement by the defendant, counsel for the defendant, or the attorney for the state. W.R.Cr.P. 32(c). Allocution is fundamental, ingrained, defined, and, in my perception of the Wyoming Constitution, required for due process within our Bill of Rights. Wyo. Const. art. 1, §§ 6, 10 and 11. Cynicism aside, among those who deprecate allocution as a pointless ceremonial institution, see Paul W. Barrett, Allocution, IX Mo.L.Rev. 115 (1944), the compelling validity of the right of a convicted person subject to discretional sentencing to manifest acceptance of responsibility or factual disagreement directly relates to both the constitutional right of the defendant to defend [2] and the rehabilitative responsibilities of the Wyoming penal system. [3] Cf. Note, Procedural Due Process at Judicial Sentencing for Felony, 81 Harv.L.Rev. 821, 833 (1968). Commentators have discussed the historical roots of the allocution tenet: Allocution, sometimes called the allocutus is of such ancientness that it is difficult, if not impossible, to discover its historical origin. In philology, as in law, allocution is an address, especially a formal, hortatory, authoritative address. In Roman antiquity it was a formal address by a general-in-chief or imperator to his soldiers, and, In the Roman Catholic Church it is a public address by the pope to his clergy or to the church generally. Paul W. Barrett, supra, IX Mo.L.Rev. at 115 (footnotes omitted). Tied to the defendant's right to be present at sentencing is the ancient right of allocution. Everyone agrees that allocution is the formal address of the trial judge to the defendant as he stands at the bar for sentencing. In its earliest form, the allocution was an effort to elicit any information that would bar the imposition of sentence. Thus it performed the mission of the more modern motion in arrest of judgment or motion for a new trial. Chitty, however, noted that if the defendant has nothing to urge in bar, he frequently addresses the court in mitigation of his conduct, and desires their intercession with the King or casts himself on their mercy. Although it is perfectly clear that allocution originated as a device to raise legal issues that might present the rendition of judgment, its modern use, undoubtedly influenced by the writings of Chitty, has come to include an opportunity to speak in mitigation of sentence. In Green v. United States, [365 U.S. 301, 81 S.Ct. 653, 5 L.Ed.2d 670 (1961)] the Court traced Federal Rule 32(a), as it then read, to the common-law right of allocution. The Court noted that as early as 1689 it was recognized in England that the court's failure to ask the defendant if he had anything to say before sentence was imposed required reversal. The important point is that in Green the Court recognized the significant changes that have occurred since 1689  the right to counsel in felony cases, the great decrease in capital offenses, the defendant's right to testify  but held that none of these changes lessened the need for the defendant to present his plea in mitigation. One interesting insight to be gained from these two principles  the right to be present and the right to make a statement in mitigation of sentence  is the early and continued recognition of an active role for the criminal defendant, not only at the trial on the merits but after the determination of guilt. Indeed, as the outlines of English criminal trial procedure gradually took shape, we detect a steady enlargement of the role of the accused in the proceedings. If today a plea for mercy sounds quaint, and if legal cause is amply protected by postconviction motions, appeal, and collateral attack, it does not necessarily follow, as some have suggested, that there is nothing worthy of preservation and development within the concept of allocution. Indeed, one of the primary strategies to achieve rational sentencing is to maximize the participation of the defendant and his counsel in the process. This requires acceptance of the view that the person convicted of a crime is not merely an object to be acted upon, but is a complex individual whose special needs and, quite possibly, whose special threat to the well-being of others, is not summed up by the word guilty. The concept of allocution contains within it the seeds necessary to achieve this objective and this view of the convicted. Fred Cohen, Sentencing, Probation, and the Rehabilitative Ideal: The View From Mempa v. Rhay, 47 Tex.L.Rev. 1, 9-11 (1968) (footnotes omitted). The constitutional component of the right of allocution is discernible from the significant number of decisions which directly address this issue. The United States Supreme Court, through a whole series of cases, [4] has never specifically accepted nor explicitly rejected any conclusion that a constitutional right component is contained within the unquestioned obligation of the trial court to provide opportunity to exercise allocution for the convicted and soon-to-be sentenced individual. [5] Since Wyoming has provided a continuous 123-year statutory and procedural rule recognition of the right to allocution, any trial time denial later considered on appellate review does provide and does not answer the definable question of process insignificance whether the trial court mistake would be only a violation of its statutory responsibility or for an actual denial of a constitutional protection. In either case, the trial court would be wrong. The materiality of the distinction for this appeal, if it is to be found, arises not from denial, but when any defendant might utilize the right to then inject a prepackaged hinderance and encumbrance on later rights for appeal with loss of a right against self-incrimination if retrial occurs. That is what happened here. Appended in analysis and theory is the explicit function found in modern sentencing which expects judicial consideration of the defendant's acceptance of responsibility. This is true with both sentencing guidelines or where, as here, the normal discretion regarding indeterminate sentencing exists. In either regard, the individual's fundamental right to seek benefit in sentencing via utilization of allocution at the time of the first conviction becomes, under the perspective of this majority, a waiver of constitutional rights if a retrial should be obtained. This case, third time on appeal and as it involves the procedural and substantive rights of an accused charged with a very serious criminal offense, is indeed a case of first impression broadly more efficacious and pervasive than just this appellant's future confinement as a monument to  if not actual prostitution of  a failed justice delivery system. To apprehend the majority decision, realistically unsupported by persuasive case law and in contravention to the responsive and thoughtful dissent of Justice Golden, it becomes necessary to further define the status and explication of allocution in the Wyoming system of justice for any logical analysis about exercise being authored into a waiver of the totally separate and different constitutional rights in subsequent proceedings.
The most comprehensive case on allocution defining its character and function in current review is Boardman v. Estelle, 957 F.2d 1523 (9th Cir.1992). Following a child sexual abuse guilty plea in the California state court system, the defendant in Boardman requested his right to address the court in allocution to answer in part third-party victim communications made directly to the court. All right of the accused to address the court before sentencing was denied, while victim impact communications were accepted. The California intermediate appellate court rejected appellant's argument in an unpublished decision and the California Supreme Court affirmed without written opinion in apparent acceptance that a due process violation had not occurred as a result of the denial of allocution under California sentencing law. Following rejection of habeas corpus in the United States District Court, the Court of Appeals found constitutional error and reversed and remanded to the United States District Court to determine if the denial was not harmless and, if not, then to have the defendant returned to the state court for re-sentencing. It is noteworthy that California had no allocution statute or rule. This is significantly different from the Wyoming legal history of statute and rule, now W.R.Cr.P. 32(c). The federal tribunal, in perceiving a federal constitutional interest involved in the state court denial of allocution, related in introduction: The most persuasive counsel may not be able to speak for a defendant as the defendant might, with halting eloquence, speak for himself. Green v. United States, 365 U.S. 301, 304, 81 S.Ct. 653, 655, 5 L.Ed.2d 670 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., writing for the plurality). Gary Boardman asserts he was denied due process of law because the state trial court refused to allow him to speak at his sentencing hearing after he affirmatively requested to do so. We agree that due process requires criminal defendants be permitted to allocute before sentencing if they so request, and we remand for consideration of whether the error in this case was harmless. Boardman, 957 F.2d at 1524. On the subject of waiver of the right by retention of counsel, the Boardman court further recognized: California first argues that a defendant who elects to be represented by counsel has no right to speak in his own behalf. The California courts have adopted this view, finding no right of allocution for a represented defendant. The [defendant] was represented by counsel and it was the function of that counsel, rather than of the defendant himself, to address the court on the defendant's behalf. People v. Cross, 213 Cal.App.2d 678, 682, 28 Cal.Rptr. 918 (1963). We reject this argument. A defendant who chooses to be represented by counsel does not waive his right to allocution. That a defendant is entitled to representation of counsel at all stages of the proceedings, including sentencing, does not necessarily mean he cannot speak `in his own behalf' . . . in mitigation of punishment. Taylor v. United States, 285 F.2d 703, 705 (9th Cir.1960) (permitting counsel to speak does not satisfy Rule 32(a)'s requirement that the defendant personally be offered the opportunity to speak). A defendant's choice to be represented by counsel is not a complete surrender of his right to direct his defense, and does not permit a court forcibly to interpose that counsel between the defendant and the exercise of his personal rights. When the administration of the criminal law . . . is hedged about as it is by the Constitutional safeguards for the protection of an accused, to deny him in the exercise of his free choice the right to dispense with some of these safeguards . . . is to imprison a man in his privileges and call it the Constitution. Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 279-80, 63 S.Ct. 236, 241-42, 87 L.Ed. 268 (1942), quoted in Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 815, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 2531, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975). The Sixth Amendment does not provide merely that a defense shall be made for the accused; it grants to the accused personally the right to make his defense. Faretta, 422 U.S. at 819, 95 S.Ct. at 2533 (emphasis added) (holding that a defendant has a right of self-representation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment). Because we find the right to allocute at sentencing to have the same personal quality as the right to make a defense, we reject California's argument that Boardman abandoned his right of allocution when he retained counsel. Boardman, 957 F.2d at 1527-28 (emphasis added and footnotes omitted). [6] Equally persuasive is the Rhode Island Supreme Court's application of its own state constitution in recognition of the defendant's constitutional interest in State v. Brown, 528 A.2d 1098 (R.I.1987). In citing the Rhode Island constitutional provision on right to trial, that court said: The right of allocution in this state is a right of constitutional dimension. See R.I. Const. art. I, § 10. A defendant in a criminal prosecution has the constitutional right to address the court before the trial justice pronounces sentence. State v. Nicoletti, 471 A.2d 613, 618 (R.I.1984); Leonardo v. State, 444 A.2d 876, 878 (R.I.1982). Brown, in this case, was not afforded the opportunity to speak before the pronouncement of sentence. The violation of that right requires this court to remand the case for resentencing. For the above-stated reasons the defendant's conviction is affirmed but the sentence imposed is vacated, and the case is remanded to the Superior Court for resentencing with direction to permit the defendant his constitutional right of allocution. Brown, 528 A.2d at 1105 (footnote omitted). The Rhode Island constitutional provision, R.I. Const. art. I, § 10, stated: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury; to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining them in his favor, to have the assistance of counsel in his defense, and shall be at liberty to speak for himself; nor shall he be deprived of life, liberty, or property, unless by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land. Brown, 528 A.2d at 1105 n. 2. Comparably, the Wyoming Constitution uses the more common language of right to defend in person and by counsel in stating: In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to defend in person and by counsel, to demand the nature and cause of the accusation, to have a copy thereof, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process served for obtaining witnesses, and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of the county or district in which the offense is alleged to have been committed. Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 10. I see no practical difference between Rhode Island's to speak for himself provision and Wyoming's right to defend in person language. I also conclude that since allocution had statutorily existed in specific detail for more than twenty years before the adoption of the Wyoming Constitution, it is really rationally undeniable that allocution was constitutionally embedded in design in the text provided by the Wyoming Constitution's in person right to defend provision. As was perceived in Boardman, we are informed by a look at the direct and indirect determinations of the United States Supreme Court that the necessity of furnishing the right to allocution is to be uniformly recognized, although its constituency as constitutional or not has not as yet been specifically determined. The necessity of allocution was first recognized by the United States Supreme Court in Green v. United States, 365 U.S. 301, 304, 81 S.Ct. 653, 655, 5 L.Ed.2d 670 (1961). [7] Surely no one would doubt that [s]entencing is a critical stage of the criminal process. Mempa v. Rhay, 389 U.S. 128, 133-34, 88 S.Ct. 254, 256-57, 19 L.Ed.2d 336 (1967). See also Boardman, 957 F.2d at 1525 and United States v. Lundien, 769 F.2d 981 (4th Cir.1985), cert. denied 474 U.S. 1064, 106 S.Ct. 815, 88 L.Ed.2d 789 (1986). In addressing F.R.Cr.P. 32(a), Justice Frankfurter stated in Green, 365 U.S. at 304, 81 S.Ct. at 655: The design of Rule 32(a) did not begin with its promulgation; its legal provenance was the common-law right of allocution. As early as 1689, it was recognized that the court's failure to ask the defendant if he had anything to say before sentence was imposed required reversal. See Anonymous, 3 Mod. 265, 266, 87 Eng.Rep. 175 (K.B.). Taken in the context of its history, there can be little doubt that the drafters of Rule 32(a) intended that the defendant be personally afforded the opportunity to speak before imposition of sentence. We are not unmindful of the relevant major changes that have evolved in criminal procedure since the seventeenth century  the sharp decrease in the number of crimes which were punishable by death, the right of the defendant to testify on his own behalf, and the right to counsel. But we see no reason why a procedural rule should be limited to the circumstances under which it arose if reasons for the right it protects remain. None of these modern innovations lessens the need for the defendant, personally, to have the opportunity to present to the court his plea in mitigation. The most persuasive counsel may not be able to speak for a defendant as the defendant might, with halting eloquence, speak for himself. We are buttressed in this conclusion by the fact that the Rule explicitly affords the defendant two rights: to make a statement in his own behalf, and to present any information in mitigation of punishment. We therefore reject the Government's contention that merely affording defendant's counsel the opportunity to speak fulfills the dual role of Rule 32(a). Green was followed by Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 82 S.Ct. 468, 7 L.Ed.2d 417 (1962), which is inconsistently but erroneously cited by the majority in this case to establish a non-constitutional confirmation for allocution. In Hill, this examination was not involved since the case centered on the appellate concept that the accused had not asked to speak. Left open was the constitutional issue in the case of a denied affirmative request under federal law concepts: It is to be noted that we are not dealing here with a case where the defendant was affirmatively denied an opportunity to speak during the hearing at which his sentence was imposed. Nor is it suggested that in imposing the sentence the District Judge was either misinformed or uninformed as to any relevant circumstances. Indeed, there is no claim that the defendant would have had anything at all to say if he had been formally invited to speak. Whether § 2255 relief would be available if a violation of Rule 32(a) occurred in the context of other aggravating circumstances is a question we therefore do not consider. Id. at 429, 82 S.Ct. at 472. The United States Supreme Court noted in footnote: See Van Hook v. United States, 365 U.S. 609 [81 S.Ct. 823, 5 L.Ed.2d 821 (1961)], for the relief afforded on direct appeal in a case where the sentencing judge disregarded the mandate of Rule 32(a). Hill, 368 U.S. at 429 n. 6, 82 S.Ct. at 472 n. 6. Van Hook v. United States, 365 U.S. 609, 609, 81 S.Ct. 823, 823, 5 L.Ed.2d 821 (1961) stated in part: The petition for writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is reversed and the case remanded for resentencing in compliance with Rule 32 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Green v. United States, 365 U.S. 301 [81 S.Ct. 653]. The obvious modus vividendi for decision in Hill was its litigative pathway by a habeas corpus collateral conviction challenge. The Hill court then said: We decide only that such collateral relief is not available when all that is shown is a failure to comply with the formal requirements of the Rule. Hill, 368 U.S. at 429, 82 S.Ct. at 472. Hill was followed by United States v. Behrens, 375 U.S. 162, 84 S.Ct. 295, 11 L.Ed.2d 224 (1963), where the court again affirmed the importance of the right of a defendant in a federal court criminal proceeding to speak in allocution before sentencing. That court held that the trial court had committed reversible error in modifying the defendant's sentence in his absence. This right, ancient in the law, is recognized by Rule 32(a) of the Federal Criminal Rules, which requires the court to `afford the defendant an opportunity to make a statement in his own behalf and to present any information in mitigation of punishment.' Id. at 165, 84 S.Ct. at 297. Justice Harlan, concurring in the result, recognized the possible constitutional issues involved in personal presence and opportunity for allocution. Id. at 168 n. 2, 84 S.Ct. at 298 n. 2. In explicit terms, the court in McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183, 91 S.Ct. 1454, 28 L.Ed.2d 711 (1971) again recognized that allocution was a right of immemorial origin. I would agree with the author in Boardman that McGautha realistically stated a view of the justices in decision that there was a long-standing basis for the right of allocution separate and independent of the entitlement created by F.R.Cr.P. 32(a): Most recently, the Court explicitly recognized in McGautha that it had not yet confirmed the Constitutional basis for the right of allocution: This Court has not directly determined whether or to what extent the concept of due process of law requires that a criminal defendant wishing to present evidence or argument presumably relevant to the issues involved in sentencing should be permitted to do so. Id. [402 U.S.] at 218 n. 22, 91 S.Ct. at 1473 n. 22 (rejecting defendant's claim that he was denied the right of allocution because guilt and penalty were determined in one proceeding, and his statements in asking for leniency in sentencing could be considered in determining guilt). The Court assumed without deciding that the Constitution does require that the trial court permit a defendant to speak at sentencing if he so requests. Id. at 218-19, 91 S.Ct. at 1472-73. It is precisely this lingering question that we must decide today. Boardman, 957 F.2d at 1527. Courts of the federal circuits have similarly and rather explicitly found the constitutional interest in allocution even before Boardman was written. In United States v. Moree, 928 F.2d 654, 656 (5th Cir.1991) (footnotes omitted), the appellate court recognized: [W]e have consistently held that a defendant's rights to be present and to allocute at sentencing, which are of constitutional dimension, extend to resentencing proceedings. United States v. Jackson, 923 F.2d 1494, 1496 (11th Cir.1991) stated: A defendant is entitled to be present when his sentence is imposed, Fed.R.Crim.P. 43(a); and this right to be present and speak is constitutionally based, United States v. Huff, 512 F.2d 66 (5th Cir.1975). See also Ashe v. State of North Carolina, 586 F.2d 334 (4th Cir.1978), cert. denied 441 U.S. 966, 99 S.Ct. 2416, 60 L.Ed.2d 1072 (1979). Converse consideration has been given in other federal court decisions to be defined only within rule application and enforcement. United States v. Dominguez-Hernandez, 934 F.2d 598 (5th Cir. 1991); United States v. Miller, 849 F.2d 896 (4th Cir.1988); United States v. Leavitt, 478 F.2d 1101 (1st Cir.1973). Contrary to the designed negativism portrayed in the staid journal review, Paul W. Barrett, supra, IX Mo.L.Rev. 115, state courts have also had an extended course of requiring a right of access by the convicted individual to allocution before sentencing. The right is derived from constitution, [8] enacted rule or statute, [9] or applied common law. [10] The changing scope of case law provides an increasing recognition which is currently found in the updated text provided in Arthur W. Campbell, Law of Sentencing, § 9:5, at 246 (2d ed. 1991) (footnotes omitted), which addressed allocution and stated: Jurisdictions split variously concerning the status of allocution. A few tribunals have elevated it to the level of a constitutional right, although others have declined this invitation. A number of states regard it as part of their common law. Many provide for it by statute; others, including the federal system, afford it by court rule. [11]
Unnecessary confusion seems to have been created by this majority opinion as to early Wyoming Supreme Court evaluation of the efficacy or constitutionality of its even then long-standing allocution requirement. Despite a differing text and opinion comment, no relevant authority is provided in the two cases cited denying to this right some constitutional perspective. First, in Kinsler v. Territory, 1 Wyo. 112 (1873), appellant raised the absence of any record on appeal issue to establish either grant or denial of allocution as his issue in a death penalty conviction. Clearly, even for that time, the opinion writing was a model of brevity, if not clarity. The opinion introduction, discussion and decision are found in one sentence stating: Judgment of the district court affirmed, and the prisoner resentenced by the supreme court, in accordance with the provisions of the statutes of the territory of Wyoming. Id. at 114. It is somewhat difficult to determine which statutes are referenced, but apparently the decisional statute is one for a capital case that provides that the appellate court shall order a suspension of the execution until such writ of error or other process provided by law, shall be heard and determined; upon hearing such writ of error, they shallorder the prisoner to be discharged, a new trial to be had, or appoint a certain day for the execution of the sentence as the nature of the case may require. 1869 Wyo.Terr.Gen.Laws ch. 74, § 189. The second case thirty years later, Keffer v. State, 12 Wyo. 49, 73 P. 556 (1903), is similarly unpretentious and equally nonprecedential on this issue. Among many other issues, contention was made about denied allocution in the death penalty conviction. Having first omitted allocution and then noting the omission, the trial court had required the defendant to be recalled and then informed the defendant of the verdict, afforded a right to allocution, and then proceeded with resentencing. This court noted the remedy for omission was recall for allocution followed by resentencing. That 1903 remedy predated what is today the general law on the remedy for denied allocution. See Arthur W. Campbell, supra, § 9:5 at 250, which states: The judicial remedy for serious allocution defects provides one point of nationwide uniformity. Where there is a substantial violation of the allocution right, appellate tribunals remand for resentencing under proper procedures. Where remand is not ordered, it is usually because the error is regarded as insubstantial or non-prejudicial. Consequently, there was no appellate issue because the trial court had already provided the appropriate remedy. See also United States v. Siciliano, 953 F.2d 939, 953 (5th Cir.1992); Miler v. United States, 255 A.2d 497, 498 (D.C.App.1969); Wright v. State, 24 Md.App. 309, 330 A.2d 482, 486 (1975); and Brown v. State, 11 Md.App. 27, 272 A.2d 659, 662 (1971). Whether allocution is constitutional as I believe or otherwise, the basic foundational nature of allocution in Wyoming sentencing under both state and federal constitutional concepts can hardly be in present doubt. The pervasive question then to decide is whether its exercise pollutes subsequent proceedings to authenticate denial of other constitutional rights by applying concepts of waiver and forfeiture. Engberg v. Meyer, 820 P.2d 70, 96 (Wyo.1991), Urbigkit, C.J., dissenting in part and concurring in part; Campbell v. State, 772 P.2d 543, 544 (Wyo.1989), Urbigkit, J., specially concurring and dissenting; Cutbirth v. State, 751 P.2d 1257, 1267 (Wyo.1988), Urbigkit, J., dissenting. This case ranges far beyond the modern appellate statements personified by some criminal decisions of the United States Supreme Court [12] and a course of recent Wyoming Supreme Court decisions with which I completely disagree and to which I have angrily dissented. [13] Here we have an exercise of a constitutional right to then be claimed to constitute a waiver and forfeiture rather than a neglect or failure of counsel to act as the generally established hitching post which controls case decisions in the usual waiver/forfeiture of constitutional right concepts now in current vogue. Ylst v. Nunnemaker, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 2590, 115 L.Ed.2d 706 (1991).