Court Opinion

ID: 9491328
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:11:10.662518+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:40.383935
License: Public Domain

W. EUGENE DAVIS, Circuit Judge
(specially concurring):
I agree with my colleagues that our precedents require us to remand this case for resentencing because the Defendant was denied his right to allocution before his sentence was imposed. Our cases require a remand in this circumstance without regard to whether the Defendant suffered prejudice. I write separately to observe that in reaching this result, our decisions have completely ignored Rule 52 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure. Rule 52 states:
(a) Harmless Error. Any error, defect, irregularity or variance which does not affect substantial rights shall be disregarded.
(b) Plain Error. Plain errors or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the court.
Fed.R.Crim.P. 52.

Rule 52(a)

Under Rule 52(a), the government bears the burden of persuasion to demonstrate that the court’s failure to allow allocution was *466harmless error. U.S. v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 727-729, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993).
As my colleagues point out, it is theoretically possible that the Defendant could have persuaded the judge to give him a reduction in sentence for his cooperation pursuant to the government’s § 5K1.1 motion. However, the judge considered counsel’s argument on this issue and adamantly refused to grant this reduction. In addition, the Defendant gives us no insight into what he would have told the judge to change her mind. In light of the judge’s strong feelings on the subject, I believe that the likelihood that the Defendant could have persuaded the district court to grant him a § 5K1.1 reduction is extremely remote. In the absence of some concrete information that Myers planned to proyide the judge to change her mind on the 5K1.1 reduction, I would conclude that the failure to grant allocution was harmless error.
We need not rely on the harmless error standard of Rule 52(a), however, because the plain error standard we are required to apply under Rule 52(b) presents a much more compelling case for refusing the remand.

Rule 52(b)

Neither Myers nor his attorney raised any objection in the ■ trial court to the district court’s denial of his right of allocution. In this day of longer, more complex sentencing proceedings and extended exchanges between the court, counsel and the Defendant, it is easier for a court, to overlook allocution. Rule 52, wisely in my view, requires us to review this unpreserved error under the lens of plain error. As my colleagues note, some of our cases may be read to exempt the right to allocution from the strictures of Rule 52(b). I see no principled legal basis on which these decisions can be supported.
The Supreme Court in Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 306-07, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991), recognized that Rule 52 applies to a number of errors involving the denial of constitutional and statutory rights that most would agree are more important than a defendant’s right to allocution. These errors include issuing an erroneous jury instruction; misstating an element of the offense; erroneously excluding a defendant’s testimony about the circumstances of his confession; unconstitutionally commenting on the defendant’s silence at trial; failing to instruct the jury on the presumption of innocence; admitting evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment; and unconstitutionally denying counsel at a preliminary hearing. See Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 428, 82 S.Ct. 468, 7 L.Ed.2d 417 (1962), in which the Court in a habeas case held that denial of defendant’s right to allo-cution does not violate a right sufficiently substantial or fundamental to be cognizable in habeas.
In U.S. v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993), the Supreme Court set forth a four-prong test for determining whether errors to which no objection is made can nevertheless serve as grounds for appellate reversal. Under Olano, reversal is not required unless there is: (l) clear error; (2) that is clear or plain; (3) that affects substantial rights; and (4) that seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Id. 113 S.Ct. at 1779. Assuming that the district court committed error, there is no basis to conclude that Myers’ substantial rights were affected.
In Olano, the Supreme Court held that the requirement that substantial rights be affected “in most cases ... means that the error must have been prejudicial: it must have affected the outcome of the district court proceedings.” Id., 113 S.Ct. 1778. In demonstrating prejudice “it is the defendant rather than the government who bears the burden of persuasion with respect to the prejudice.” Id.
Myers makes no claim, nor could he, that he has met this burden. As stated above, he did not tell us what information or argument he would have supplied the district court that might have persuaded her to change her mind and give him a reduced sentence under Guideline § 5K1.1.

CONCLUSION

If I were free to disregard our precedents, I would decline to remand this case for re-*467sentencing because Myers has not carried his burden of persuasion to demonstrate prejudice, which he is required to do under Ola-no’s explanation of how we should apply the plain error standard of review under Rule 52 Fed.R.Crim.P.
I have no doubt that the district judge’s failure to invite Myers to speak at sentencing was an oversight and she would have granted him this statutory right if counsel had made a simple objection. There is no justification for excusing counsel from lodging an objection in this circumstance.
If I were free to do so, I would join the Fourth, Sixth and Ninth Circuits in holding that Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure applies to the trial court’s failure to afford a defendant the right to allocution.1

. See, e.g., United States v. Cole, 27 F.3d 996, 998 (4th Cir.1994); United States v. Riascos-Suarez, 73 F.3d 616, 627 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 136, 136 L.Ed.2d 84 (1996) (implicitly applying Rule 52 by reversing for resen-tencing because the allocution "could have had an effect on his sentence"); United States v. Leasure, 122 F.3d 837, 840 (9th Cir.1997), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. 731, 139 L.Ed.2d 668 (1998).