Opinion ID: 1118222
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: status of allocution in wyoming case law

Text: 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second case thirty years later, Keffer v. State, 12 Wyo. 49, 73 P. 556 (1903), is similarly unpretentious and equally nonprecedential on this issue.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).