Court Opinion

ID: 9444231
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:46:59.20478+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:46.889447
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring.
RIVES, Circuit Judge, (specially concurring) .
If this were a direct appeal, I do not think that our following the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Sandroff v. United States, 174 F.2d 1014, 1020, would justify affirmance. In that case, the judge posed the query, “Anything further?” while in the present ease the record shows that the judge said simply, “Let the defendants stand”, whereupon the defendants stood at the bar and the judge imposed sentence on each of them without further ado. Rule 32, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, is mandatory to the effect that, “Before imposing sentence the court shall afford the defendant an opportunity to make a statement in his own behalf and to present any information in mitigation of punishment.” The requirement is deeply rooted in the common law. See Schwab v. Berggren, 143 U.S. 442, 446, 447, 12 S.Ct. 525, 36 L.Ed. 218. After being convicted, the defendant is usually so crushed as to hesitate to make demands lest they bring increased punishment. The rule contemplates no such demand, and clearly, without the necessity of any demand at that stage of the trial, the defendant’s legal rights should be accorded to him by the court. I do not think, however, that the sentence was void, and my concurrence is based solely on the principle well stated by the Fourth Circuit in Taylor v. United States, 177 F.2d 194, 195:
“Only where the sentence is void or otherwise subject to collateral attack may the attack be made by motion under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255, which was enacted to take the place of habeas corpus in such cases and was intended to confer no broader right of attack than might have been made in its absence by habeas corpus.”